Blown from his daddy's arms

By Sheila Stogsdill

Published: May 13, 2008

PICHER — The 4-year-old son of a woman killed in Saturday's tornado is recuperating in a Tulsa hospital after being ripped from his father's arms and thrown almost two blocks from home.

Brandon Kelley "is doing real well,” said Larry Kelley, the boy's grandfather.

Brandon received 22 staples in the back of his head, stitches to his ear and treatment for a cut on his cheek, he said.

"He has no broken bones. All the CT scans came back normal, and his back is scraped up real bad,” Kelley said.

Mistie Kelley, 30, Brandon's mother, died as a tornado ripped through town, leveling the home where she hid with Brandon and her husband, Jack.

Jack Kelley suffered four broken ribs, three broken vertebrae, a split spleen, multiple abrasions and a bruised kidney, and remains in the intensive-care unit, Larry Kelley said.

"The winds blew Brandon out of his daddy's arms, then picked up Jack and blew him around,” Larry Kelley said. "When it was all over, Jack was under a pile of rubble about a block and a half from where their house once stood.”

Jack Kelley dug himself out of the rubble and was yelling for help to find his family when his father and brother, John, reached him.

As the men began to look for Mistie Kelley and Brandon, a faint cry for help was heard.

Brandon was under the rubble. Mistie Kelley's body was nearby, Larry Kelley said.

Cary Ng, a friend, said the Kelleys were renting the house in Picher and planned to close on a house in Miami in a few weeks.

"They shouldn't have been there,” she said. "Mistie was just so good. She was a wonderful mother and just a good person. It's not fair.

"We just went out to eat with them a couple of weeks ago. … They were just happy and holding hands,” Ng said of the Kelleys.

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