A Tornado Took My Farmhouse While I Was Inside It. The ER Doctor Who Dug Me Out Wouldn’t Let Me Thank Her

My name is Tyler Voss. I’m 45 years old, and I raise cattle and corn on nine hundred acres outside Kearney, Nebraska.

I’ve lived through a lot of storms. Hail that shredded the corn. Blizzards that killed calves. Droughts that cracked the ground.

I’d never seen a tornado touch my land until last May.

I’m divorced. No kids. My ex-wife lives in Omaha and we get along fine, mostly because we don’t talk. I live alone in the farmhouse my grandparents built in 1938, with a border collie named Scout who’s smarter than I am.

On the evening of May 14th, I was in the kitchen making supper when my phone started screaming.

Tornado warning. Take shelter now.

I looked out the window. The sky to the southwest had turned a strange green-black color. The wind had stopped completely. The birds had gone silent.

Then I heard it. A sound like a freight train coming across the fields.

I grabbed Scout and ran for the basement.

At 6:42, the siren in town went off.

At 6:49, my house was gone.