here. and they put out a news about that about everything that s going to be taking place. and rick morgan, who will never shop anywhere again. thanks again. i well, actually, i called nicole, who had talked to me the first time about the first interview i had, and i left her a phone message on wednesday. i said, well, i just spent about an hour in my storm shelter for the first time in many years. all right. and the tornado didn t come but i m going to keep spending it there when the sirens go off. i ve officially repented. rick and john, thank you so much. speaking of that if it s possible, could i give a real quick shout out. real quick. i d like to thank all my family and friends back home for all their prayers and support, and i d love to thank all the dillon s employees and everybody for all the support and prayers that they ve done for us. so, god bless you all. i can give a quick shout out
we just talked for a little bit. the thing he shared with me that i just found so encouraging and profound he said, he don t think anyone was left in the store. i think they all lived. and i was just so thankful. i mean, that s what leadership is all about. it s just you know, i was at the thing with president obama where he talked about the manager who actually gave his life to save those customers in a cooler, i think, in pizza hut. i don t know. i appreciate this man because he really did i mean, god spared us, but in the natural, this man saved my life, literally. and i thank you. well, heroes come in all shapes and sizes, guys. a nice moment to end on there. john, congratulations for stepping up to the plate when your customers really needed you. thanks to both of you. john, assistant store manager at dillon stores, which i m sure up or down, they re coming back to joplin, i bet, right, john? they are going to rebuild
of time we were able to evacuate over 200 patients to a safer parking lot and then transport them to area hospitals. this finger here was lass rated wide open. reporter: patients like paul johnson were stabilized in makeshift triage centers. they were making do with what they had. so, i tip my hat to them. it was that fast they set up a system that fast that took care of people. reporter: six people died at st. john s that day, but miraculously, most survived. this is the new tower, this is the original hospital. reporter: two days later, for jim risko, it s all sinking in. my heart s broken because my mom and dad died here, my son was born here. i have so many memories of working with the other doctors and the nurses. this is home. i mean, st. john s is more than a building. it s a spirit. st. john s and the national guard are opening a temporary field hospital with 60 beds. it s across from the destroyed building. why are we seeing so many powerful tornado this is y
because of the wind was so bad. he was about to get sucked out. john, is this store policy, your policy? have you practiced this, everybody in the cooler? this is a company policy, kroger is really good. they have all of these different policies out. they believe in safety first. my store manager, mindy, she s adamant within the store to make sure everybody knows where they re supposed to go in the event of a tornado. if it gets cloudy outside, we go around, check to make sure that people know where their flashlights are at, make sure that the batteries are working in them, they know exactly where they re to go, and to grab everybody on the way to our produce cooler. john, give me an idea of what it was like inside that cooler. were people screaming? were they scared? were they calm? people were screaming, people were praying, people were crying. i know it seemed like everybody was holding on to everybody.
around. st. john s is a 230-bed acute care hospital. reporter: jim risko has been an e.r. doc at st. john s for the past seven years. this is a very sophisticated hospital in a relatively small town. i was down the road playing horseshoes with my friends. reporter: on may 22nd andrew mcdab yell came to the hospital to visit his grandmother. as he arrived, a sound familiar to every mid-westerner. the sirens started going off when i was walking in. i didn t see much other than the dark clouds over there. i didn t think much of it. reporter: but in those dark clouds, a monster tornado was headed right for them. at st. john s, it was the moment they trained for that they hoped would never come. we drill just by virtue of the fact we re in tornado alley, we prepare several times a