Deborah Wooten

Former counselor, tornado survivor joins kidney commission

Deborah Wooten, a former rehabilitation counselor, has been appointed to the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission. Wooten is a survivor of the March 21, 1952, tornado that struck Judsonia.
Deborah Wooten, a former rehabilitation counselor, has been appointed to the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission. Wooten is a survivor of the March 21, 1952, tornado that struck Judsonia.

“They said I would never walk again, but I fooled them,” said Deborah Wooten, clutching frayed issues of the Arkansas Democrat and the White County Citizen between her fingers.

On their pages, gently unfolded, the tattered newspapers from 1952 tell how the then 1-year-old Wooten, born Deborah Rollins, was one of five motherless children who survived the disastrous tornado that struck small-town Judsonia that March.

The tornado left Wooten disabled, a life experience she said has shaped why she looks forward to helping others in need of medical assistance. A retired certified rehabilitation counselor, Wooten was appointed to the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission on June 14 by Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

The Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission provides financial assistance to those who have chronic renal disease and require lifesaving treatment. Wooten replaces Bob Abbott, the “founding father” of the commission, who retired this year, she said. She said her role on the commission will enforce the checks and balances of distributing funds.

“I will be serving on the commission to look at cases that have been approved through the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services and the Arkansas Kidney Commission,” Wooten said while sitting in the Arkansas Workforce Services building in Searcy, where her office was located when she was a rehab counselor. “We just oversee the [funds] and make sure everyone who’s getting those services gets what they need.”

On March 21, 1952, the day of the tornado, Thomas and Doylelynn Rollins moved to Judsonia with their daughters, Toni Lynn, 3, Deborah, 1, and Julia Ann, 11 days. Though the sky gave a warning for what was to come, Doylelynn insisted on making dinner for the girls’ father, who at the time worked in Batesville.

“My mother would not go to the storm cellar because she was fixing supper for Dad,” Wooten said. “To her, the clouds weren’t that bad. My great aunts, they tried and tried to get her to go, and she didn’t do it. He was going to be coming home soon, and she had three girls she had to feed, take care of.”

The tornado hit, claiming the lives of Toni Lynn, Julia Ann and Doylelynn, 21, who could only be identified by her apron and wedding ring. Wooten was also considered dead.

The 1-year-old was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was placed in a pile of dead bodies, she said. When an X-ray technician witnessed her breathing, she was rescued and given to a kindhearted couple from Little Rock, where she received brain surgeries at St. Vincent to remove fragments and brain swelling, was in a coma for at least two weeks and remained hospitalized for six months. Her grandparents eventually located her and later adopted her, and Wooten was raised outside of Searcy.

She never moved back to Judsonia.

Though she doesn’t remember the tornado, Wooten said, the tragedy continued to impact her as she grew older.

In her early teenage years, she attended a county fair in Springfield, Missouri, where her father, who later remarried and had five other children, lived at the time. Wooten rode a new ride at the fair that year, which began spinning clockwise.

“It started going counterclockwise — I freaked,” she said. “It was like I was in the tornado again. I don’t remember any of it, but at the time, I was reliving being tossed around in the tornado. They had to shut down the ride and let me off. It was so terrifying.”

She was also picked on in school.

“One thing my grandfather always taught me: You treat people the way you want to be treated,” she said. “I remember how I was treated in school. I limped. So I was made fun of, and I was never the popular kid. But hey, that’s just part of life.”

Wooten said surviving the tornado affected her desire to help others. She received her master’s degree in education from Harding University in Searcy, after which she worked for 13 months as a job-placement specialist for people with disabilities.

“I’ve always been interested in helping people with disabilities, whether someone with a physical problem or a mental-heath issue, or a sight issue,” Wooten said.

Wooten hadn’t previously considered the path of becoming a rehabilitation counselor, but on Sept. 17, 1991, she entered the field.

“That [tornado] experience has molded me, really, the way that I am,” she said. “I want to help people. I want to do good. I know what it’s like to not have your biological parents. Many, many times, I wondered what would it have been like. Well, that wasn’t God’s plan. He had a different plan for me. I think that being a rehab counselor was that plan.”

As a rehabilitation counselor, Wooten worked one on one with individuals who had physical or mental-health issues, helping them to enter the workforce. She said every case was unique and that it was a rewarding career. She had anywhere between 150 and 450 cases at a time in White County, and she also visited area schools and met with clients as young as 14.

“I always focused on what they could do, not what they could not do, because growing up, I was always ‘poor little Debbie; she’s got a disability,’’’ she said. “You grow up with it, you learn to adapt, and that’s what I always instilled in my clients, that you may have a different way of doing things now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. You have to look at what your abilities are.”

For example, Wooten said, a client may be a truck driver who has sustained an injury and needs assistance re-entering the industry.

“We had one individual — he could not return as a driver, but we sent him to Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center and trained him as a dispatcher,” she said. “They developed a program specifically for him to get back into the industry as a dispatcher.”

Wooten said that while she was a rehab counselor, she witnessed many success stories, and she encouraged clients to rely on their own strengths.

“Nobody owes you anything,” she said. “You have to work at getting what you need. If you don’t strive to be successful, how do you think you can be successful? Don’t look for that handout; always look at what your abilities are.”

As a part of the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission, Wooten said, she most looks forward to working with medical professionals, whom she hasn’t worked with before.

“I will be working closely with doctors, and that’s going to be a new area for me,” she said. “I’ve worked with counselors and individuals who have doctorates in the rehabilitation field, but this will be something different because I’ll be working with medical professionals who work in the field of kidneys and renal failure.”

The way Wooten sees it, there’s always something she can be doing to help others, and the Kidney Disease Commission is a way for her to do just that.

“I’m looking forward to doing more,” she said. “It’s opened up a new chapter in my life. I’m 66 years old. Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I can’t do something.”

Staff writer Syd Hayman can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or shayman@arkansasonline.com.

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