Nowata County Woman Thankful To Be Alive After Tornado Strikes

An EF-2 tornado destroyed Linda Frye's mobile home during last week's severe weather in Nowata County.

"I'm convinced the tornado actually started in my front yard. It had to."

She was thrown into her yard and says if she had stayed asleep in her recliner, she would have died.

Frye says she thought the worst was over and felt safe enough to leave her nephew's storm shelter.

But a few hours later, a bolt of lightning woke her up. She got up out of her recliner to use the restroom, not knowing the worst was about to happen.

The only thing I remember thinking was "Oh no, here we go!"

"A lot of times, things go in slow motion for people but it went really quick," Frye said.

Little time to get to a safe place when the skies opened for a violent vortex.

"Suddenly the trailer went this way really far," Frye said. "Then it went this way really far. Then it just blew up. And I was swirling around in the air."

Frye says she never lost consciousness.

She remembers vividly what she heard.

" Sounded like a train," Frye said. "We have trains go by all the time. Tracks right by our house. Sounded just like a big choo-choo whistle.

What she saw....

"Things just flying everywhere," Frye said. "I was moving around and saw my kitchen stove pass by."

And what she felt…

"I landed on my back really hard on the ground," Frye said. "Yeah, it was scary."

She was hurt but still alive. Frye hollered for help because she couldn't move.

Amazingly, her son and daughter-in-law, who were both asleep in the same home, didn't have a scratch on them.

"I probably would have died if I had stayed in my recliner," Frye said.

Despite her injuries, a broken pelvic bone, cracked ribs and cracked vertebrae, and cuts on her skull and feet, Frye remains in good spirits.

"[I] tried to get to Oz," she said.

Humor aside, Frye insists God was watching over her.

And she prays she'll never have a storm hit so close to home again.

"Have a lot of respect for Mother Nature," she said.

Frye says she hopes to leave St. John Medical Center today or tomorrow.

Frye and her husband will live with her daughter in Mannford as she travels the long road to recovery.

Her husband says they are hopeful she'll be up and walking in six months.

Frye says she'll be back to running foot races by that time.