Nurses hoping to return pictures found after tornado to rightful owner
Nov 05, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Two Oklahoma Heart Hospital-South nurses are hoping someone can help can help them reunite victims of Sunday’s tornado in Oklahoma City with some sentimental pictures they found scattered among debris near their hospital.
The tornado cleanup near SE 89th and Sooner Road will take some time.
Debris from homes leveled by an EF3 tornado Sunday scattered far beyond the neighborhood.
Neighbors recount moments they barely survived late-night EF-3 tornado
After the tornado came through, it littered the Oklahoma Heart Hospital-South’s windows and parking lots with debris.
The hospital is located less than a mile from the neighborhood by the tornado.
“I turned on the news and I saw that it was around Sooner,” Haley Pirkle said. “And then I was like, oh, goodness, that probably hit right near work.”
Pirkle is an ER nurse at Oklahoma Heart Hospital-South.
She and fellow ER Nurse Brittney Morgan returned to work a few hours after the tornado came through.
“We were actually came on the shift [Sunday] about 6 a.m. and walked around to kind of look at the damage,” Pirkle said.
The two noticed something in the grass as they walked near the hospital’s ER entrance: two pictures of people they didn’t know.
“We happened to come across these two photos,” Pirkle said. “I believe this looks like a wedding photo to me.”
Photos found outside Oklahoma hospital following tornado
“These are like, you know, sentimental ones,” Morgan said. “We have a baby here who looks like they're one month old.”
Photos found outside Oklahoma hospital following tornado
It didn’t take long to put two and two together.
“These probably belong to one of the houses that did take a hit behind us,” Pirkle said.
So they reached out to News 4, to help spread the word.
“We want to get this back to the mom or this might be the only thing that they have left,” Morgan said.
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“It looks like something that somebody would definitely want to have back,” Pirkle said. “I'm a big photo person, so I know this is probably important to somebody.”
As News 4 was getting ready to leave the hospital after talking to the nurses, News 4’s crew found another picture in the grass.
The picture is of a boy, appearing to sit a picnic table while making a silly face at the camera.
Photos found outside Oklahoma hospital following tornado
If you know who that picture belongs to, please call news 4.
As for the pictures the nurses found, they say Oklahoma Heart Hospital-South will hold on to them.
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If you know who they belong to, please call the hospital.
Pirkle and Morgan say they hope can get the pictures back to their rightful owner, to help the community the serve during its darkest hour.
“We definitely see a lot of patients around here,” Pirkle said. “And you know, they mean a lot to us.”
“We are looking out for them,” Morgan said. “We care about them and their community, and we just want them to have these back.”