Hurricane Relief Volunteer Remains In ICU

By Craig Day, The News On 6

TAHLEQUAH, OK -- A Green Country woman with a heart to serve others is in intensive care after being injured while helping with Hurricane Gustav relief.  Beverly Kohl, from Tahlequah, fell from a mobile feeding trailer in Baton Rouge.

Now the longtime volunteer who has made tremendous efforts to help others over the years is faced with overcoming adversity herself.

After Hurricane Gustav slammed into the Gulf Coast, Christina Adams wasn't surprised when her sister Beverly Kohl volunteered to help with relief efforts.

"She helps anybody, anytime, anywhere.  She's just the most giving person you could ever meet," said Christina Anderson.

Kohl's trip to Baton Rouge took a terrible turn while working in a Southern Baptist Disaster Relief mobile feeding unit.

"Somehow I guess she fainted, and fell out of the opening six feet down to the concrete," said Christina Anderson.

Kohl ended up with severe bruising and a spinal cord injury.  Doctors also found previously undiagnosed problems in her spinal cord caused by osteoporosis.

"Implant some bone and steel and then they'll go in from the back, and put in some rods and pins and stuff that will be permanent," said Christina Anderson.

The hurricane relief work is just the latest in a life marked with volunteerism.  The longtime nurse previously helped twice in Sierra Leone, once for six months aboard a mercy ship and also in Nicaragua.

"She's just an incredible person.  Everybody loves her.  She's so sweet and giving.  It's just so tragic that this happened to someone like that," said Christina Anderson.

Kohl is in ICU at a Baton Rouge hospital and will have surgery later this week.  Doctors say it's too soon to know if she'll have any long term effects from her injury.

"Just to know there really are people like this.  It's just so sad that something happens to those good people.  She's an angel on Earth," said Christina Anderson.

Now Beverly fights to recover, her family asks for prayer for a woman who has done so much for so many others.

A week after her surgery, Kohl's family hopes she'll be well enough to be brought back to the Tahlequah area to continue her rehabilitation.