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Special Report: Finding Hope in Destruction

It’s been four months since a tornado touched down in Gaylord, killing two people, injuring forty others and devastating countless homes and businesses.

In much of the time since, the Gaylord community has worked together to rebuild and heal.

Dave Boughner and his family lived in Nottingham Forest Mobile Home Park. It was one of the hardest hit areas in the path of the tornado. Dave says he was home with his teenage son when the tornado moved in.

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“I heard like a freight train,” Dave said. “It sounded like a major big train coming through my house, went to my bedroom and looked out and I saw a carport fly over my house and hit my neighbor’s house.”

He told his son to brace himself and then a tree came through the roof. “The only thing I remember is getting thrown through my bathroom wall and then coming to scream for help and my son coming to find me,” Dave said. “I couldn’t feel my legs.”

Neighbors raced to help Dave. He was trapped under two walls of the house.

Dave had a punctured lung, broken ribs, several fractures in his spine and he couldn’t move from the chest down. “It probably took me a good couple of weeks coming out of all that to realize what’s going on, but they started telling me the extent of my injuries,” Dave said. “That was kind of hard to take.”

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His home was destroyed, but Dave’s focus was on his recovery, which required extensive therapy. “It was very difficult for me. I gave my therapist a lot of attitude,” Dave said. “But, you know, I pushed through it every time they gave me a new goal to get. I did it.”

Tracey Newsome and Mike Blackstock are occupational and physical therapists at the University of Michigan, where Dave was taken for his injuries.

“I genuinely enjoyed each session coming in to try and figure out how in a different way I can convince Dave to do what I want him to do today on this session,” Mike said. “And so I would then try to come up with different reasons. ‘Well, this is why we should do it today.’”

“I’d pick on them, I’d joke around a lot, but I did the work and that was very hard to do that work,” said Dave.

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Finally on July 22, after more than two months in the hospital, Dave was able to go home. “If I could jump for joy, I would have been jumping for joy,” Dave said.

But where could he go? The storm destroyed everything. It turns out that while Dave focused on his health, his community in Gaylord was focusing on all the rest.

A stranger heard the Boughners’ story and offered them a place to stay. Organizations stepped up and got Dave a power chair to help him get around.

“I couldn’t believe the town did that. I mean, that’s very, very overwhelming for me, you know, just seeing how this town came and not even just the town, just people that heard my story and all just help in helping me out,” Dave said. “I’m very, very grateful.”

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“It takes special people to take care of what happened to me,” Dave said. “I’m trying now to thank people here in Gaylord. Without them, I don’t think I’d be here.”

The events of the last few months have inspired Dave as he focuses on his next chapter. “They helped me out a lot, and that’s how I’m going to live from this day forward,” Dave said. “I don’t take anything for granted anymore. Life’s too short to just be careless anymore.”

Physical therapy continues back home in Gaylord. Dave is working each day to get a little stronger than he was before.

You can hear Xavier’s full interview with Dave in the latest edition of ‘the four’ podcast.

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