PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Danielle Stammer survived the storm

One year ago today, May 22, 2011, life was good for Danielle Stammer, husband Andrew and their children Ethan and Emily.

“That was when my husband was graduating from nursing at Missouri Southern State University and he had a job starting in two weeks at St. John’s Medical Center,” Stammer said. “Family had been over and it was a perfect day. Then everyone let and we were looking for some peace.”

Instead, their world, as well as much of Joplin, was violently changed. Stammer has written about that day and its aftermath in a memoir titled “Singing Over Me: A Joplin Tornado Survivor’s Journey.”

“We were miles from the path the storm would take when the sirens went off,” she said in an interview during a recent trip to Joplin. She and her family now reside in Jefferson City, Mo.

They were warned by a call from family that there was a storm cell near Riverton.

“Dad said to seek shelter at St. John,” Stammer said. “We went back home to get our computers and paperwork we might need. I was getting in the car when it started to hail. It was hail like you normally think of, it was in chunks.”

As they drove toward St. John’s Medical Center, Stammer was trying desperately to contact her sister, who had gone to the Joplin Hastings store.

“She was hunkered down in the back room at Hastings,” Stammer said.

As the family approached St. John’s, they saw something that almost looked like fireworks.

“It was the transformers exploding,” Stammers said. “I shouted to Andrew that we should go to Freeman Hospital, but he had no time.”

Her husband pulled the car in to the east side of St. John’s and they headed for the entrance, with son Ethan in his mother’s arms and daughter Emily being carried by her father.

But they found that they were locked out of the hospital.

“The door had to be opened by a code, and Andrew hadn’t started working there yet, so he didn’t know the code,” Stammer said. “I remember being so quiet in my head. My husband was ramming himself into the sliding glass doors and finally he went under. As my son and I went inside the tornado was there. I was knocked to my knees.”

Her husband, who is 6 foot 4 inches and weighed 230 pounds at that time, was picked up by the wind and thrown through the first door  of the hospital into a stairwell.

“He found himself on the bottom of the stairs with our daughter safely under him,” Stammer said. “I thought, ‘I’m still alive.’ I could still see the wind blowing stuff around outside. I was praying for my husband and singing to my son.”

Finally, as the tornado subsided, she went into the hospital, and found that medical personnel were in the process of triage, assessing those injured by the storm.

“There were very limited supplies there,” Stammer said. “Ambulances were coming from all over. Andrew was taken to Via Christi Hospital by an ambulance from Little Rock, Ark.”

Fortunately, he had bruised ribs but no serious injuries.

“Andrew’s sister in Parsons came and got him and took him to her home in Parsons,” Stammer said.

She had both children with her in Joplin, and they eventually got to Freeman Hospital.

“A nurse who could text send a message to her sister,” Stammer said. “Andrew’s father, who’s a  nurse, had come to help.  His parents found us and took us to their house, which wasn’t damaged but didn’t have power. Our house got quite a bit of damage, but not too bad.  We put tarps on the roof and I picked up some stuff for the children.”

But heavy rains came the day after the tornado.

“The rains did us in, and we ended up having to gut the house,” Stammer said. “The exterior walls were fine and without the rain they probably could have put the house back together.”

The Stammers went to Jefferson City, where her parents had a large home with plenty of room.

“It was good for the children, because they were just going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house,” she said. “We were with my parents until three weeks ago, when we moved into our own place.”

She and her husband are also now expecting their third child, due in October.

The book came about later.

“The story was in my head,” Stammer said. “I would write lines as they came to me. My sister said, ‘Let’s go to the Women of Faith conference and they were doing a writing contest. That was a nugget in my mind. I was good at writing and people would ask if I would ever write a book. I said, ‘If I ever have something to say’. Well, now I have something to say.”

She entered the writing contest and didn’t win, but place in the top 12 percent.

“Then I knew I had something valuable,” Stammer said.

The title came from another conference she attended in September.

“The speaker was a woman from Joplin and she said a scripture about God singing over us,” Stammer said. “That pulled something up in me. As I was singing to my child during the tornado, God was singing over me and protecting me.”

She said that writing the book was a healing experience for her.

“Finally, I am writing to honor the Lord who walks with us, even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” Stammer said.

The book is now out, and available at WestBow Press, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Anyone wishing additional information may visit www.singingoverme.com.