The Great Escape – Kellie Stringer
Senior athlete Kellie Stringer and her parents, Bob and Debbie, share a moment during Senior Soccer Night on May 9 at Junge Field.
Photo by Todd Shurtleff
Kellie Stringer is a natural athlete. She's tall (5-foot-9), strong and relentless.
A three-sport standout (volleyball, basketball and soccer), she decided to give swimming a splash her senior season and picked up a 12th varsity letter.
“Athletics are kind of my life,” said the 18-year-old senior.
Said assistant athletic director Bruce Vonder Haar: “She's one of our best athletes in school, boy or girl. She's good at every sport she played.”
Instinctive also, on and off the court: A couple of decisive moves in her Toyota 4-Runner during last year's tornado undoubtedly saved her life.
She left Joplin's graduation at Missouri Southern State University and headed home, but took an ill-advised route to 7th and Range Line Road, where she waited at an intersection. Unbeknownst to her, she was headed straight for the eye of the EF-5 monster.
“I actually really like storms so I was thinking, 'Oh cool, storm chasing,'” Stringer said. “But then suddenly I was in the middle of a black cloud and I'm thinking, ‘This is not cool.'”
Not cool at all.
The next 10 minutes of Stringer's life were a horror movie, though she retells it with an unusual sense of cool and calm and borderline giddiness, almost as if she escaped fate.
“All the air was being sucked out of my car,” she said. “I felt like it was compressing. Debris was hitting it. It was all black. So I quickly took a right and hit the sidewalk. I couldn't really see.”
She could see the red car and driver right next to her.
“I saw it get pulled into the air and into the tornado and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I just see.' I knew I had to get out of that situation, so I pulled a fast u-turn. I felt like I couldn't breathe.”
She sped down the road at approximately 70 mph, virtually blinded by the debris.
“I was scared I was going to hit someone but I had to just keep on going,” she said.
Stringer (right) battles a McAuley Catholic player duringa home soccer game on May 9.
Photo by Todd Shurtleff
Stringer knew she likely couldn't outrace the tornado, so she sought a building, a structure, some place to find shelter. She was able to make out a Conoco gasoline sign and whipped into the parking lot.
One huge problem. Just as she turned off the ignition, the huge Conoco sign blew on top of the car and trapped her inside.
“The whole left side was bashed in and I couldn't get out,” she said. “I tried the right side, but I would have been just taken away. So at that point, I just kind of freaked out. I waited for just the right moment, I prayed, and then I went for it. I somehow opened just the right door and sprinted inside the Conoco and I was fine. ... But it was kind of a bad experience.”
Stringer said she's sought no counseling from the ordeal, even though it was offered throughout the school year through both FEMA and Healing Joplin, a local behavioral health service. More than 40 percent of Joplin students sought and received help, according to multiple sources.
“I'm a pretty strong person,” she said. “I really didn't need to let anything out. To be honest, I healed by just trying to help others really. I didn't get hurt so there was no real reason I should feel sad for myself.”
That kind of response didn't surprise Vonder Haar, who called Stringer a natural leader, extremely hard worker and extremely personable. He said her quick and decisive actions in the Toyota mirrored her reactions on the field. Her speed and strength helped her mad dash into the Conoco station as well.
“She didn't panic in that spot which is pretty amazing,” Vonder Haar said. “I think most of us might just close our eyes in the spot and hope for the best. She kept her composure and did the right thing.”
Even after reaching shelter. The first thing she did was call her father and mother, Bob and Debbie. She did so not so much to let them know she was OK, but to find out their status.
“The best phone call I've ever got in my life,” Bob said.
Said Vonder Haar: “That's the kind of unbelievable perspective Kellie has. Even in a moment like that, when her life is in peril, she's thinking about others. Her teachers tell me that's how she is in everyday life. The people she's closest to, she truly cares about and puts herself second.”
Her parents attended Senior Soccer Night on May 9 when she scored a goal from 30 yards out in a 2-0 win over crosstown rival McAuley. It was the last athletic hurrah in a superb prep career. She'll attend the University of Arkansas next fall and focus on biology or medicine, like her dad, who is an orthopedic surgeon.
As far as her senior athletic year, she said she was just grateful to have one. Ditto for the new facility at the mall and the laptops that were donated. She took none of it for granted, instead giving back to the community in the massive clean-up drive.
“I'm proud of all my classmates and all the volunteering we all did to make our town better. It was both fun and hard. It was a lot of work, but considering all that people gave to us it was only right. It was awesome.”
But not every day was awesome for Stringer. Until she recalled her escape from the EF-5.
“Of course we were sad some days because at least temporarily our town and school were taken away from us,” she said. “But I focused on what I didn't lose and am just happy to be alive every day because you don't know when it could be your last.”
