Good News But Prayers Still Needed

Our family continues to be thankful and amazed at all the prayers, support and concern you have shown us since the tornados last Friday night that destroyed my brother’s house and sent he, his wife and two of their three children into the hospital in critical condition. They’ve shown steady improvement each day.

Health Update:

Daughter Mia’s MRI came back clear so she should be able to go home soon. Son Caleb is doing well. He has a back brace and will probably need it for six weeks but should recover fully.

Darrell is scheduled to have surgery on his jaw today. After that, it shouldn’t be too long before he is released. He will need to be able to swallow his pills on his own before they can release him (since he won’t be able to receive medication through IV at home). He has been taking short walks around his floor of the hospital every two hours. My dad and I walked with him yesterday — his steps are slow but steady.

Trish is scheduled for surgery on her broken pelvis today. After that, she will need some rehab so we don’t quite know when she will be released.

These surgeries have been postponed before and could be again, if the hospital receives patients with life-threatening needs for immediate surgery.

News Coverage:

The Louisville NBC affiliate (WAVE) covered Darrell and Trish’s story yesterday with an interview by reporter Lori Lyle. Lori is a life-long friend of the Gilles family. You can view the WAVE-3 Gilles tornado story here. If you saw the video interview I posted here at My Song In The Night a couple days ago, you’ll notice how much Darrell has improved since then.

The Louisville ABC affiliate (WHAS) also interviewed Darrell yesterday and covered this story, at this link. Thanks to reporter Renee Murphy. I believe the local FOX affiliate (WDRB) will be doing a story too.

If you are a reporter interested in this story, please contact University Hospital Community & Media Relations manager David McArthur here.

Local Heroes:

In the last few days, people have come forward to put more pieces of Darrell and Trish’s story together. Here is a comment that responded to the original video:

“My son, Cody Brock, and his grandfather were the ones that came to help you. My son is the one that arrived there first to you and went to help your wife. He continues to talk about what he had seen and how he never thought twice about that second tornado coming, all he could think about was getting you and your family to safety. My heart goes out to you and your family as I hear him recount that moment. I take comfort in knowing that my 17 yr old son wanted to make sure u & ur family was safe.”

And here is a comment by Karen Miller, left here at My Song In The Night, in our initial story:

After the second tornado went through I started getting fire runs on my pager. Me and my boyfriend Chad took off running down the lane when we head Speith Rd. Chad went to Martins then ran to McReynolds. As we turned and looked acrost the field we saw the Gilles home. We noticed a few gentlemen throwing rubble and I heard what I thought was Mia screaming. When I ran up and got a closer look I found out it was Trish screaming. I stopped everything so I could do a quick assessment of her injuries and we loaded her onto a door and covered her from the hail. I stayed with Trish and talked to her. We got her into the back of a pickup truck and took off for town. Power lines and trees hampered our movement, but we made it to my driveway as a Sellersburg fire crew showed up. We sent Trish out as the Sellersburg truck led us into town past traffic. We made it to the four way in route to the fire dept. as we got to the four way I noticed several ambulances staging and waiting on injuries from the school. I yelled at a squad and had them bring a stretcher to get her to the hospital quickly. As an EMT I gave my assessment to the ambulance crew and loaded Trish onto the stretcher. I told Trish she was in good hands now and I loved her and I would check on her as soon as I could.

Thank God for each of these true heroes, and the many more that have been on the scene to help our family and others like us.

To make a donation, you can:

1. You can deposit funds at PNC Bank for Darrell Gilles Catastrophic Relief Fund.

• Acct Number:3023866564
• ABA/Routing Number: 083000108.

This was set up as a tax exempt account with an IRS IEN number. We were assured by PNC that the account is completely safe and only two people in the family have withdrawal permissions. No withdrawals can be made without identification and passwords. It has been red flagged for all transactions and is legally set up the way all memorial funds are set up. The account number and routing numbers are necessary for people outside the local area to be able to send relief funds.

2. If you’d prefer to mail a check, send it to Sojourn Community Church and write clearly “Gilles Family Tornado Relief” on the check:
Sojourn Community Church
930 Mary Street
Louisville, KY 40204

3. You can also donate securely online through Paypal, via our diasinger _ @ _ gmail account. In addition, all Noisetrade.com “tips” we receive for the “My Song In The Night” mp3 download will go to this Paypal account. To donate through Paypal, click here.

 

Tagged as: family, interview, story, testimony