CARTHAGE, Mo. — When the wall of Dave Kerwin’s shop blew away, it took him with it.
Kerwin suffered six cracked ribs and a collapsed lung from the EF5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., on May 22.
His home in one of the hardest-hit areas was destroyed.
“I was missing for several days,” Kerwin said. “Everybody thought I was dead.”
On Saturday, five volunteers from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville went to Carthage to help Kerwin move into a house he bought in August.
“I appreciate this very much,” said Kerwin, an electrician. “It’s going to help me get my mental game back together.”
The volunteers were organized through the UA Alumni Association. The group calls itself Helpin’ Like a Hog.
On June 25, Helpin’ Like a Hog volunteers assisted Arkansas tornado victims in Denning and Etna in Franklin County, which were hit May 24.
Five people died from the storm.
The work in Denning and Etna was more of a community effort, said Debbie Blume, director of administrative services for the Alumni Association. In Joplin, the group is targeting its volunteer work toward UA alumni. Kerwin received a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology from UA in 1990.
“It’s sort of alumni helping alumni,” Blume said.
On Saturday, Kerwin’s basement in Carthage was filled with electrical parts, and three volunteers were helping sort through the piles.
Another two, UA students, were cleaning the house and other items salvaged from Kerwin’s home in Joplin.
“I haven’t had a chance to clean this stuff up,” Kerwin said. “I got all my stuff, but I lost my furniture, my bed.”
One of the volunteers found a leather pistol holster.
Kerwin said he was a competitive marksman, but since the storm he has lost his desire to shoot.
“I have become more peaceful,” he said.
Some of Kerwin’s “stuff” is sensitive electrical equipment that can’t get wet. Much of the rest of it went to a carwash.
“This stuff was so dirty and filthy, we’ve been hauling it to the carwash and hosing it off,” he said, referring in particular to an old file cabinet from which he salvaged files and a box of Kodachrome slides.
Besides Blume, others helping included Bob Blume, Debbie’s husband, and Meredith Hawkins, communications specialist for the association.
The student volunteers were Parash Rajbhansi of Nepal and Megan Frohardt of Kansas City, Kan. Kerwin’s son, August Starr, of Fayetteville also helped.
Dave Kerwin said he was doing lawn work May 22 when the tornado started to approach. He was wearing earplugs and didn’t realize how threatening the sky had become. He went in the house, but the storm hit and the windows and doors shattered inward.
“I was running around dodging broken glass,” Kerwin said. “I went to my shop, because it didn’t have any windows. When the thing came, it just kicked a wall in and sent me flying. I was beat up.”
Some high school boys found Kerwin and took him to a hospital in Carthage.
Kerwin remembers the old pickup bouncing through debris, rattling his cracked ribs.
“They threw me in the back of this truck like a sack of potatoes,” Kerwin said. “I was bouncing around back there thinking, ‘When is this going to end?’”
Kerwin spent two weeks at Mc Cune Brooks Re - gional Hospital in Carthage while his friends rummaged through morgues looking for his body. The death toll of the Joplin tornado stands at 162; EF5 refers to the Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado severity.
At the hospital, doctors removed Kerwin’s spleen.
“They opened me up like a can of beans,” he said.
Since May, Kerwin has been living with Elizabeth Foster, his son’s mother-inlaw.
Kerwin said he was happy to be getting the new house in shape and his things moved in.
“Knowing these folks were coming over put the spurs to me,” Kerwin said. “I’ve made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks.”
Another group of about 40 volunteers from UA assisted Saturday with an event called Trunk-or-Treat in Joplin.
Donations were given to displaced families at the event, which also included music, games, food and prizes.
It was sponsored by the support organization Friends Helping Friends.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/24/2011