Influx overnight

Thirty-six new residents flooded into Persimmon Ridge Rehabilitation Center in Portland on March 14. A tornado had struck their home, Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Winchester, forcing them to evacuate to nearby shelters.

Getting an influx of patients at that level all in one night doesn’t happen, noted Melinda Hodgson, administrator and executive director at Persimmon Ridge. But addressing the need for beds and shelter, Portland’s facility opened its doors.

Most residents arrived with only the clothes on their back. 

“They literally came in their pajamas,” said Alicia Emerick, assistant director of nursing at Persimmon Ridge. “No paperwork, no other personal belongings. Some didn’t have their glasses, some didn’t have their teeth.”

Nurses, administrators and other staff at Persimmon Ridge worked around the clock to situate the new residents. As of Monday morning, about 30 residents from Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center are still living at Persimmon Ridge.

Devastation

Kory Carpenter was working at Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation in the midst of the storm March 14.

“I was running around trying to get everybody to fill the oxygen, because if the power goes out, we have to have oxygen,” he explained. “My coworker, Eli, was like, ‘Kory, we need to go in the shower room, because it sounds like it’s getting bad outside.’”

Carpenter grabbed a resident in the hallway and began to leave to check on a nurse. His coworker told him to stay.

“Literally, as soon as I got pulled into the shower room, the door slammed and hit me in the head because of the wind,” he said. “We opened the door (afterward) and it was just everything everywhere.”

Carpenter posted a video online in the aftermath of the tornado, showing fallen ceiling tiles, insulation, lights and other debris scattered around one of the facility’s wings. His video has had more than 1 million views on TikTok, and he posted a few other videos in March showing damage to the exterior of the building.

After the storm had passed, Carpenter and others began clearing debris and relocating residents.

“We were in 4 feet of water,” recalled Carpenter, who now works at Persimmon Ridge.

His workplace wasn’t the only aspect of his life that changed. Carpenter’s car was damaged beyond repair in the tornado, having lost the entire front engine compartment and flipped on its top. (He made a GoFundMe to help pay for a new vehicle.)

As of the beginning of this month, the Audi was still sitting in the field just southwest of the facility.

Kayla Powell, director of rehabilitation at Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, had been sheltering at Delta High School when the tornado struck Winchester. With traffic and road closings, it took her about an hour to get to her facility after the storm.

“My job was to get everybody on the buses,” said Powell, who had worked at the facility for almost seven years. “A lot of the patients, they all know me, so they kept asking me, like, ‘Why are you making me leave my home?’ So that, like, broke my heart, when I was trying to tell them, ‘We’re not, we’re just trying to keep you safe.’”

Response

Hodgson said Persimmon Ridge received a call about taking in residents from Winchester’s facility shortly after the tornado hit March 14.

“They said that they needed beds, and we offered up our services at that time,” she recalled. 

The Portland facility took in approximately 36 new residents, a record-high for intake in one night. It put Persimmon Ridge at its capacity.

 “In the 11 years I’ve worked here, we’ve never been at capacity,” said Lisa Holcomb, a nurse at Persimmon Ridge. “So that was new for all of us. A lot of new faces to learn, medical diagnoses to be aware of.”

Holcomb pointed out administration spent their days in the office and nights on the floor, helping to get the new residents situated, passing out medication and handling other tasks to keep the facility running smoothly.

Amanda Adair, director of nursing at Persimmon Ridge, said the transition has been emotional and busy, noting staff has been working to meet the needs of all its patients. All employees, both on the clock and off, responded to the Portland facility that evening. Anne Patch, a Fort Recovery resident and nurse practitioner at IU Health Jay Family Practice, contacted residents’ families to let them know their relatives were safe.

Amid the chaos, married couple Donald and Marilyn Pearson — they both had been living at Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — were separated. Donald was sent to Persimmon Ridge in Portland and Marilyn was sent to Parker Health and Rehabilitation Center in Parker City.

“They just had to take (us) where they could,” said Donald Pearson, noting his daughter visited him that night and helped make arrangements to reunite them the next day at Persimmon Ridge.

“We’re just thankful it turned out the way it did,” he said. “Thank the good Lord for taking care of us. It’s amazing to me nobody got hurt.”

Magnolia Health Services — it owns and operates 35 nursing and assisted living facilities in Indiana, including Persimmon Ridge — recognized the staff’s efforts April 4 at the Portland facility. 

Representatives from Magnolia Health Services, Portland Mayor Jeff Westlake and Winchester Mayor Bob McCoy addressed rehabilitation center residents and staff, celebrating the facility’s quick response to the disaster.

“The Jay County and Randolph County communities, along with Magnolia teams’ reaction to the devastating event was outstanding,” said Tonya Nunez Smith, regional director of operations at Magnolia Health Systems. “So many people should be committed for their heroic efforts.”

In an interview, Emerick talked about Portland’s response as a community to the disaster, noting the amount of donations — money, food, toiletries and services — that have been poured into Persimmon Ridge. She also praised the facility’s team for its hard work and resilience as it adjusted to meet the needs of more than 30 additional residents.

The merger between staff from Randolph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and Persimmon Ridge Rehabilitation Center has also gone well, Powell said. Staff from the Winchester facility has been hired on to help with the influx of residents at the Portland facility.

“It honestly here feels like two families kind of merged together,” she said. “It’s just kind of like we just made one big family.”