Monday, April 28, 2014

Neighborly rural rescue amidst Arkansas tornadoes

I was struck by the following description in the New York Times coverage of the tornadoes last night in central Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma.  Referring to those brought in to the Conway Medical Center, in the midst of the stricken area, Alan Blinder and Motoko Rich report:
A number of the injured brought in overnight came with the help of neighbors. 
“We had a gentleman who was strapped to a door,” [Lori Paladino] Ross [of the Conway Medical Center] said, and taken to the hospital in the back of a pickup. Another man went to the hospital twice carrying injured people in his pickup.
Of course, pickup trucks are not limited to rural areas, but two areas of Faulkner County, Arkansas, hardest hit by the storms, are rural by some measures Vilonia, population 3,815, and Mayflower, population 1,631. Certainly that quote elicited a rural image for me.

No comments: