Dresden teen continues recovery following 2021 tornado
DRESDEN, Tenn. — In December, storms swept across four states and several cities and towns. One of those included Dresden.
“The house started dusting just a little bit, and you could see it and I was like this is for real,” Kimberly Koehn said.
“I dove for the hall and no more than sat down and heard the house start splintering, and that’s the last we remember until we woke up in the field,” Darwin Koehn said.
These are the parents of 14-year-old Kyle Koehn.
During the December storms, the family just arrived home from dinner when one family friend made them aware of tornado warnings.
“He made the comment, and he said keep your shoes on tonight,” Darwin Koehn said.
The storm nearly destroyed the entire town of Dresden. And for the Koehns, most of the family was propelled 180 feet from their house.
Kyle Koehn was found just yards away.
“He was moaning, and I said, “Right there. That boy is hurt bad,” Darwin Koehn said.
“I don’t remember the pain so much. I just remember it was cold and wet,” Kyle Koehn said.
A couple of weeks after the tornado, Kyle Koehn was admitted into Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital. With his family also being hospitalized in Tennessee, he made it his priority to dedicate himself to therapy.
“He had no feeling from his umbilicus, to basically belly button, all the way down. We knew that this was a kid who is going to fight hard,” said Dr. Connie Simmons, a Pediatrician at Rankin Georgia Pediatric Bridge Hospital.
And that he did. After spending several weeks in therapy, Kyle Koehn was released on March 29.
However, it wasn’t just his family there to give him a warm welcome, but also people from his school.
“It’s going to be hard to leave. Honestly, they have become very good friends to us,” Kimberly Koehn said.
“They’ve been wonderful. Couldn’t ask for better,” Kyle Koehn said.
Kyle Koehn still has a while to go before making a full recovery, but doctors are expecting him to continue to improve each and every day.
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