Modern Woodmen help tornado victim Doug Cottom
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Modern Woodmen fraternal organization provided a $17,000 check Tuesday to Doug Cottom, owner of Ross Cottom Lanes and a victim of the Feb. 29 tornado.
The funds came from a bowling tournament and silent auction held April 1 on Cottom's behalf organized by local Modern Woodmen members Bob Holmes and Gailene Harrelson.
Modern Woodmen's home office matched the first $2,500 raised.
Cottom and his wife Stacy lived in the Brady Street Apartments in Gaskins City where the tornado totally destroyed their home and killed six of their neighbors.
Cottom suffered a fractured pelvis, three broken ribs and three breaks in his back after the tornado lifted his house and tossed him and his home about 100 feet away. His wife sustained only a cut at the top of her leg after landing in the grass.
"I'm awful lucky, but everything's fine," he said though he's still walking with a cane.
He and his wife woke up that morning from the text messages sent to their phones by the sheriff's department using Nixle.com. The department sent out a notice at 4:35 a.m. that morning noting the tornado warning for Saline County until 5 a.m.
"That was the first thing we heard, next was hail, then the sirens," and that's when they headed for the bathtub, Cottom said.
Then it was "just the house taking off and being amongst the rubble," he recalled. "I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't got in the tub."
"It happened so fast you didn't have time to be scared," his wife added.
Amazingly Cottom's iPad which he had picked up after hearing the initial text message survived. He doesn't remember taking it to the bathroom but Stacy does. They were trying to get information about the storm online when the tornado hit.
Someone found the iPad in the rubble and brought it to him during his recovery.
"I used it in the hospital. It's all bent up but it works fine," he said noting a big crease in the back of the tablet computer and a one corner bent up.
Even better than the iPad, Stacy was amazed at being able to find their four-year-old Maltese pet still alive just setting on a cabinet door as if she had surfed through the storm.
Cottom praised the quick response by emergency providers.
"The response there was unbelievable," he said. "From the time we hit the ground to the time we got to the hospital wasn't more than 30 minutes."
The hospital though was "like a war zone," with the injured and dying being brought up the hill to the emergency room.
Cottom's old classmate and current Sheriff Keith Brown was one of the first on the scene. Brown said he knew Cottom would be okay after he heard him cracking jokes as they were trying to get him prepped for transport.
The sheriff credits the Nixle system for saving the Cottoms' lives. He encouraged everyone to sign up for the notification service at www.nixle.com.
Cottom thanked Parton and members of the Carmi Modern Woodmen of America chapter who organized the bowling tournament.
As a tax-exempt fraternal benefit society, Modern Woodmen sells life insurance, annuity and investment products not to benefit stockholders but to improve the quality of life of its stakeholders, its members, their families and communities through social, charitable and volunteer activities.
Annually Modern Woodmen and its members provide more than $23 million and nearly $1 million volunteer hours for community projects nationwide.
Back in Cottom's old neighborhood his former landlord Danny Morse led crews Tuesday working on four duplexes now under construction in the Brady Street Apartments complex.
The tornado completely wiped out the units on the west side where Cottom and his wife lived and heavily damaged the units to the east. All have been removed and Morse plans to rebuild them as quickly as he can.
"I'm hoping the first two will be ready the first of June," he said.
He originally built the first four duplexes in 2004 with a two more the following year. He build the last four, including the Cottoms' home just last spring.
With a number of retirees living in the complex, "it was like a little family in here," he said.
"It was hard, especially that first day," he said recalling the immediate aftermath of the storm.
Each apartment has two bedrooms and a garage with about 1,150 square feet of living space.