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Tornado injuries - worse than you think

Dan Robinson

Dan Robinson

EF5
While doing some reading last night, I discovered a rarely-talked-about aspect of tornadoes that while macabre, is probably something more of us should think about. The movie depictions of someone in a tornado (and maybe our own perceptions and confidence in armored vehicles) are a far cry from the realities. Yes, we probably know that to some extent, but do we know *how* bad it actually is?

Here are a few things gleaned from these sources, some I hadn't fully grasped previously myself:

- Tornado winds at the surface are densely packed with small particles that will 'sandblast' off clothing and large patches of skin.

- Any wounds will be deeply penetrated with fungus and bacteria-rich soil, causing serious secondary infections.

- The wind gets into cavities (eye sockets, nose, mouth, ears) and can do severe internal damage and ghastly mutilations.

- In addition to debris impacts, many people are killed/injured from being violently tumbled along the ground or becoming airborne and then falling.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0434(2002)017<0343:TRDAII>2.0.CO;2

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/joplin-tornado-health-fungus_n_874806.html?

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/21/nation/la-na-nn-oklahoma-tornado-injuries-20130521

Think twice before you plan on driving/running into a tornado.
 
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Definitely something I think many of us don't actively consider for one reason or another. I myself admit to not being fully knowledgeable on the true extent of injuries caused by tornadoes...I mean sure there's the usual stuff you would expect from debris colliding with or falling on those unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place, but I never would have given thought to secondary infections from the dirt being blown around.
 
The Oklahoma state medical examiner has a Powerpoint presentation that he gives on the 2013 Moore tornado... It's graphic in ways I've never seen death displayed before. I've seen bodies, but that's not the same as seeing those pictures. You won't find it online (thankfully) but he gives it periodically at emergency management / disaster medicine conferences.
 
Man, I can't even imagine, Rob. The trauma you'd go through after some of those injuries if you did live.... no thanks. If an impalement doesn't get you, the infections caused from the mold and other parasites getting into your body via the wind surely would.
 
For the morbidly curious, the internet is full of a great variety of images and video of gruesome injuries, but luckily, tornado injuries are remarkably difficult to find.

The only time one generally thinks about the injuries these storms can cause is when citing the usual "x number of people injured" by the tornado. The nature of those injuries is often entirely overlooked or deliberately ignored. In fact, the first time I remember learning the details of particular tornadic injuries was when I read blog posts from chasers and first responders after the Joplin storm.

To add to your short list, a not insignificant portion of fatalities are attributed to "mechanical asphyxiation". Similarly, I remember a guy on a TWC Storm Stories episode describing the nerve and tissue damage caused by being trapped under heavy debris with his knees pressed against his chest for hours.
 
I was a brand spanking new EMT on April 10, 1979 (yeah, I gave away my age!) and had the unpleasant job of treating a large number of folks that night and the next several days. Injuries we never discussed in school or could even imagine. A 2x4 through the upper arm of a man - still embedded, folks sandblasted to the point that we could not determine if they were male or female. We picked up a co-workers parents that had been caught running across a field to a shelter. Never recognized them. The horrific side of life when caught by a tornado. The only time I ever saw injuries close to these where on Aug 2, 1985 when Delta 191 got caught in a downdraft at DFW. Another major reason I hate chaser convergence.....blocking the paths of emergency vehicles trying to get to the injured.
 
Kind of the same lines of infections killing more people in combat than actual injuries. Haven't seen that kind of wounded from a tornado, but I've seen what an IED can do to a person, so I can definitely imagine. Add to that the fact that there is nothing remotely sanitary about Iraq and Afghanistan (in many places no plumbing or it's not used by the locals), and it's a small wonder we haven't lost more due to infection from combat wounds over there.
 
I remember seeing Tim Marshall on one of my DVD's ( Might have been "Storm Chasers") talking about this and saying how he has seen bodies and body parts! He said " Quite frankly, I don't see how it can get any worse than that."
 
There's a rather poignant description of what happened to the victims of the Utica IL tornado in this Pulitzer Prize-winning story from the Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-0412070129dec07-story.html#page=1

Shortly before dawn, when all the bodies had been located, a chain saw cut away sections of Milestone's floor. Bierbom's big machine removed the sections. Then Jody Bernard, the somber, petite LaSalle County coroner, or one of her three deputy coroners, would climb down, examine the body and pronounce the death.

Each body was placed in a blue bag, then the blue bag was lifted out of the hole.

At 6:59 a.m., they lifted out Jay Vezain.

At 7:04 a.m., Carol Schultheis.

At 11:12 a.m., Mike Miller Jr.

At 11:15 a.m., Larry Ventrice.

At 11:17 a.m., Beverly Wood.

At 11:22 a.m., Marian Ventrice.

At 11:25 a.m., Wayne Ball.

At 11:28 a.m., Helen Studebaker Mahnke.

All but Vezain and Schultheis died of traumatic asphyxiation, which means they were crushed to death, probably in the first instant of the collapse, when the walls and floors began to pancake down into the basement. Vezain and Schultheis, who never made it into the basement, died of blunt force trauma.

But those official-sounding causes of death, announced by Bernard at the coroner's inquest May 27 (2004) at the LaSalle County Courthouse, hardly hint at what actually happens to human bodies when crushed by a two-story building: the brutality, the blunt and unimaginable violence of hundreds of tons of stone and wood and concrete collapsing upon fragile frames and soft flesh. There were shattered bones and severed arteries and fractured skulls and lacerated organs and one transection of the brain stem--decapitation.

The ones who survived did so because they chanced to be standing in just the right places. The walk-in cooler and the two freezers blocked a portion of the plummeting debris, creating instant, lifesaving lean-tos.

There had been, survivors said, simply no time. No time for final thoughts or last-minute regrets, for so much as a cry of pain or yelp of warning. There was only time, if one is inclined to think that way, for the freeing of eight souls to continue their journeys elsewhere.
 
John Olexa said:
I remember seeing Tim Marshall on one of my DVD's ( Might have been "Storm Chasers") talking about this and saying how he has seen bodies and body parts! He said " Quite frankly, I don't see how it can get any worse than that."
Click to expand...

Just for the record, the show was Raging Planet.
 
Having been inside of a vehicle that was pelted with all sorts of debris, I know I would not want to be out in the open with those types of winds and small, sharp debris flying around at 90+ MPH. I'm reminded of a goofy Criminal Minds episode. Not very realistic ...
 
This was discussed in the post 1999 Moore Oklahoma tornado event cause of its particularly strong intensity and suburban density. This was before forums and I think was more of a discussion among websites and chatrooms of the day (yahoo messenger maybe). While not necessarily a statistical outlier, it was the first (to me anyhow) time I can remember thinking ofmthe extreme nature. I believe too (not with 100% assurity) this was about the time I decided I may not be equipped to be a "first responder" (as discussed in a separate thread).

What I also remember about that discussion was in context of plane crashes being similarly gruesome.

Add: this is also why I was super unhappy when stuck in my truck (which died due to the belt being blown off) during Hurricane Frances adjacent to a mobile home park! Not happy at all (if you've seen the September's Fury documentary...its on there!).
 
Carolyn Brewer's "Caught in the Path", about the 1957 Ruskin Heights, MO tornado, and Mark Levine's "F5", about the April 3, 1974 outbreak and specifically Limestone County, AL, both document a wide array of non-fatal injuries.

A few years ago my mom told me that the little girl killed in our subdivision in a 1967 tornado was decapitated. That was news to me. I do remember my next door neighbor walked down to where the damage was and came back hysterical, but I don't know what she saw.
 
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