SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KTIV) -
Four years ago a tornado struck the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near Little Sioux, Iowa. Four boy scouts were killed, 48 others were hurt.
The EF3 tornado leveled the buildings as scouts sought cover inside the main shelter.
The storm was so strong it picked up the camp director's pickup and launched it into the building.
The fireplace crumbled and young men were trapped in the rubble.
Doing what they had been taught to do, scouts then started to provide first aid to each other, triage in the most troubling circumstances.
One of the young men pinned in the rubble that night Tom Auen of Sioux City.
He suffered critical injuries, but survived to share his story. In 2008, KTIV's Kristie VerMulm talked with him shortly after he got home from the hospital.
The 14-year-old Auen was on staff at the camp that week. When the skies turned dark, the sirens went off, and they ran for cover in the north shelter.
"One of the adult leaders came in and said get the movie rolling and calm down and he went to look around and he went to open the door and it just got sucked out of his hand. He came back and said get down under the tables," said Auen. I remember hearing the wind coming, but after that I blacked out and I woke up once, under the rubble, the chimney that had broken. I remember calling for help.
His mother Mary Auen was a nurse on duty at Sioux City's Mercy Medical Center when trauma patients from the camp started coming in.
Mary Auen said, "I knew there was 4 dead. What went through your mind, it could be yours. So I had an experience in that moment of what it's like to lose a child. Because I didn't know if he was dead or alive."
Tom soon came through the ER doors after being flown to the hospital with several broken bones, including his jaw, collar bone, right leg. His left leg had been pulled out of its socket.
"I don't remember where I was when I woke up. I don't remember what happened. Maybe the rubble pinned me down and I wasn't taken away. But I'm alive!" Auen said.
Alive, but battered. He was flown to Minneapolis for more surgery where doctors realized he had a tear in his wind pipe. A tube helped him breathe for several weeks. Doctors in Minnesota reconstructed his trachea using cartilage from one of his ribs. He spent a week in an induced coma so it could heal.
Auen, now 18, recently graduated from Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City. In the four years since, his body has healed just fine. He said he has no problems with activities, despite all the broken bones.
He said the experience made him realize how much a community can come together in a time of need. Auen also said it taught him the value of not taking anything in life for granted.
He plans to attend Grinnell College and major in Biochemistry.
