JACKSON, Tenn. — Danny Song bolted for cover as a tornado tore through the dormitory complex at Union University — then the ceiling came crashing down on top of a couch that was wedged against him.
For the next hour and a half, he lay pinned in the rubble.
“I was in a fetal position,” the 20-year-old junior recalled Wednesday. “I tried to lift up, but I couldn’t. I was thinking I would lose my legs. I couldn’t feel them for a long time. I just felt really helpless.”
Rescuers ultimately dug him out, along with 25 other Union students who were stuck behind jammed windows and the wreckage of walls, floors and furniture — damage wrought by the violent weather that swept across five states Tuesday.
About 50 Union students were taken to a hospital, nine of them with injuries classified as serious, said Tim Ellsworth, the school’s news director.
Song’s legs were not badly hurt, and he was back on campus the next morning surveying the wreckage.
Though the small, private college was heavily damaged, school officials said students escaped life-threatening injuries primarily because they quickly took shelter in dorm bathrooms and other interior spaces.
Tornadoes are a regular threat in Jackson, a city of 60,000 people 75 miles northeast of Memphis.
The campus suffered damage from tornadoes in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, a tornado struck downtown Jackson, killing 10 people and tearing a path of crumpled buildings, twisted metal and toppled trees. In 1999, twisters killed 10 people in Jackson and Clarksville.
This time, emergency planning and broadcast warnings of the twisters prevented more serious injuries, university president David Dockery said.
Each dorm room and apartment on campus is required to have the school’s tornado emergency procedures posted, according to a school handbook. All the buildings are equipped with alarms that warn of tornadoes and fire.
