On May 22, 2011, at 6:13 pm, a man was brought in by wheelchair to the Freeman West Emergency Department, conscious but holding his intestines in his hands.

Within minutes, the entire department was filled with the injured and the dying: Adults and children suffering broken bones or impaled by debris. Between 6:13 pm and 6:29 pm, 100 patients showed up for treatment—one new patient every 45 seconds. Literally every single inch of space inside the ED was packed with people in wheelchairs and gurneys.

These individuals were the victims of one of the nation’s deadliest tornadoes—an EF-5-rated monster that touched down just west of Joplin at 5:41 pm and ripped its way through the heart of Joplin, destroying 8,000 structures and killing 161 people. Chief among the structures was the town’s other hospital, leaving Freeman as the only hospital left remaining in Joplin after the storm. 

The masses were brought in by ambulances, nearly 45 vehicles at one point. Additional tornado victims arrived in the backs of kind stranger’s pickup trucks and SUVs. The most badly injured were carried inside the hospital atop car hoods or house doors.

“I was the one counselor on duty in the emergency room. Within about 15 minutes, the first injured patient arrived, and then people started coming,” said Debbie Fitzgerald, Director of Ozark Center – Crisis Services. “I think there were 800 to 1,000 Joplinites who had come to the hospital and were in the lobby area. I, being one counselor, started reuniting some family members that evening. I started talking to people. I would take the deceased down to the morgue and pass them off to the staff working down there.”

More than 500 wounded were treated at Freeman in the first hours following the storm. Over the first 12 hours, 22 life-saving surgeries were performed. As the days progressed, more than 1,700 victims of the tornado would need Freeman’s care.

Fitzgerald was instrumental in helping Freeman Ozark Center establish Healing Joplin, which trained volunteers who had no mental health backgrounds to provide emotional support to those who didn’t need clinical help but required emotional support.

This model is now used by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in all natural disasters.

“I was able to get a big team of 81 people at one time together. We literally were foot soldiers in Joplin, going door to door,” Fitzgerald said. “Joplin would not be where it is today had that team not been the psychological first aid—the supporters, the blue shirts who were on the ground helping Joplin day to day, getting out there, and seeing literally hundreds and thousands of people.”