GREENSBURG, Kan. – A police officer who was critically injured in the tornado that tore apart Greensburg was removed from life support early Tuesday, a few hours after his daughter was unofficially married in a “promise” wedding at his bedside.
The 1.7-mile-wide Category F-5 enhanced tornado, with wind estimated at 205 mph, destroyed about 95 percent of this farming town on Friday.
Robert Tim Buckman, a 46-year-old officer from nearby Macksville, suffered a head injury in the storm Friday that also killed nine people in Greensburg and another person nearby as well as Buckman, officials said. He died early Tuesday at a Wichita hospital, his son Derick Buckman said.
“He died being a hero,” Derick Buckman said. “He was sworn to protect people, and that’s what he was doing the night he got picked up by a tornado.”
His father was just outside of town on his way to warn residents in two rural houses to get to safety when he was overtaken by the tornado.
During his final hours, Robert Buckman symbolically gave away his 18-year-old daughter in an unofficial marriage ceremony at his bedside, his son said. The couple plan to wed in August.
The family’s hometown preacher officiated at the ceremony for Kylee Buckman and her boyfriend, Josh Mondello, 22, Derick’s best friend.
Search and rescue operations continued Tuesday in Greensburg, where emergency responders have struggled to determine if any of its 1,600 residents are missing because so many are staying with friends or relatives rather than in shelters.
The last day anyone was found alive in the wreckage of Greensburg was early Saturday, when two elderly women were pulled from the wreckage of a Mennonite church.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said the government’s response to the disaster was limited by ongoing National Guard deployments to the Middle East.
“I don’t think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower,” Sebelius said. “The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace.”
White House spokesman Tony Snow rejected the criticism, saying the National Guard had equipment positioned around the country to respond to disasters when requested by states.
Snow said no one had asked for heavy equipment. “As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios,” the spokesman said.
At Snow’s second, midday briefing with reporters, he offered that it turned out that the state had requested several items that the federal government supplied – those radios, and also a mobile command center and a mobile office building, an urban search and rescue team and coordination on extra Black Hawk helicopters.
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