Del City Woman Recalls May 3 Twister Nightmare

By Alex Cameron, NEWS 9

DEL CITY, Oklahoma -- Carolyn Stager lived in Del City on May 3rd, 1999 and her pregnant daughter Christy had come over to ride out the storm.

"We were kind of doing our little chit-chatty things, and then the phone began to ring," Stager said.

Relatives urged them to take cover and a glance at the TV showed them a tornado was, in fact, headed their way. The two women headed for the hall closet.

"We kind of got the door shut, and just barely in the nick of time," Stager said. "The first thing that happened was the TV exploded."

Stager said she felt the windows being sucked out of the dining room.

A monstrous wedge tornado chewed up and spat out everything in its path from Chickasha to Moore, was taking one last bite.

Stager's home was unrecognizable after the tornado passed, leaving her severely injured.

When Stager's daughter came to, she glanced around and looked right at her mother.

"She didn't even recognize it was me," Stager said. "The stillness of me lying there, and she thought I was like a dressmaker's dummy or something."

Stager's son Nathan Stager, now a Moore firefighter, had been with friends and raced to what was left of his home. He found his mother on a makeshift stretcher, a t-shirt covering much of her head and her pelvis bleeding badly.

"I knew the situation was bad if I'm holding her side shut, and she's got stuff wrapped around her head," Nathan Stager said.

"They just kept looking at my head," Carolyn Stager said. "They weren't giving me eye contact and they weren't allowing me to move."

An ambulance took Stager to St. Anthony Hospital where she was seen by Dr. Tom Janssen, who immediately noticed the wrapping on her head.

"I got to talking to her and I just kind of lifted it up to see," Dr. Janssen said. "There was no scalp left. Completely gone, it was perfectly symmetric loss of scalp...I'd guess it was four to five inches wide and all the way to the back."

Dr. Janssen had never seen an injury like it, but had also never seen a patient like Carolyn Stager, who, despite her terrible injuries, was actually smiling and talkative.

"Most people with those kind of injuries, they're usually out of it," Dr. Janssen said. "Carolyn was not out of it at all, she was right there with us."

A book Stager recently co-authored, Twist of Faith, says it was faith that got her through May 3rd, faith that cushioned the tragic loss of her unborn granddaughter a month later, and faith that sustained her through a years-long recovery, which required multiple surgeries and strength she never knew she had.

"It really was living one of things that you think only happens to other people," Carolyn Stager said. "You think it can never be you or your family, but it can be."

Stager thought she was going to die on May 3rd, and very nearly did, but she's full of life.

Learn more about Stager's book and upcoming book signings.