Email update from Bob Furniss, Kevin's dad

The following is from an email sent by Bob Furniss, Kevin's dad. Kevin is a friend of Jason's from high school who is a junior at Union. Kevin and Jason were together when the storm was approaching.

As you may have heard by now, my son Kevin was one of the seven guys that were
trapped under a building for four hours on Tuesday night. We are very
blessed. He is doing well but still has some medical issues and will be in
the hospital for several days. Three other guys have been released and
three others are dealing with more extreme medical issues. Please pray for
Matt, David both in Intensive Care and Jason who is experiencing the same
injuries as Kevin.

It has been all over the news – in fact they
interviewed Kevin live from his hospital bed last night on Fox News – Greta On
The Record.

I don’t have enough time to write the full details but
here is a short version.

Kevin and his friends were in a student
commons building. Seconds before the tornado hit, three ran into the
girl’s bathroom and four into the boy’s for cover. Kevin said his “ears
popped, the building shook, and then we were covered and in the
black.” The two story building literally imploded around them and
the roof and walls of several dormitories then fell on top of that. The
paramedic said that they were about 30 feet deep and about two to three tons of
rubble on top of them. Yet somehow, God made the decision to spare their
lives.


When the building imploded Kevin was left partial
standing with his legs turned backward and under him. He could move his
neck, his right arm and that was all. All of the guys were blow into
little pockets and were awake. Kevin said “for the first 30 minutes we all
screamed and yelled – we begin to understand that we could hear each other but
we had no idea how deep we were. One of the guys, Jordan, said he was in a
little pocket and not injured. He had been sitting on the commode when it
hit and now was able to wiggle down into a hole below. He became the
leader of the survival. He began to pray out-loud and take an inventory of
who was hurt and how bad.” They guys begin to talk and take turns
praying. Matt was hurt the worse with large concrete on his legs.
Jason had concrete and rubble on his chest. Kevin said his legs and one arm
begin to go numb after 45 minutes. We learned later that for the first 1.5
hours that the fire fighters could not find them. One of the boys called
911 on their cell-phone. Kevin had just pulled his out to text his mom and
lost it in the implosion. Kevin said he begin to quote scripture out-loud
that he has memorized. The other guys joined in. They also sang
hymns and asked each other “what did God have planned for them when this was
over.”

After 45 minutes the guys said they begin to hear the
muffled sound of rescuers. Jordan could yell and give information about
their status.

The first guy was pulled out after 2
hours. Kevin was the fourth guy out at about 3.5 hours. The last kid
was out at 5 hours. The paramedic said it was “a mini version of the World
Trade Center.”

There is a whole other odyssey about me getting from
Las Vegas, where I was training, to Jackson. I arrive yesterday at
9am.

So that is the short version – there is just so much more to
tell. The medic said to me yesterday when I visited the “hole” that “there
is just no way that we were able to pull seven guys alive out of that rubble –
it had to be a ‘God Thing.’ Standing here it is hard to believe that we
could have found them and gotten them out of the pockets of rubble”

Kevin’s version of this is much more powerful and detailed.