The 1990 Plainfield tornado left a teen ‘riding out the storm’ for 32 years and 2 days

Former Plainfield resident Shaun Carroll recalled messing around with a video camera in 1990 and recording his best friend Eddie Butler walking through the front door.

It was the last time Carroll, now of Iowa, ever saw Eddie walk.

On Aug. 28, 1990, 19-year-old Eddie Butler became a quadriplegic after being injured when a EF5 tornado tore through Will and Kendall counties.

The Plainfield tornado killed 29 people — 24 instantly — injured 350, damaged 470 homes and destroyed another 1,000 homes, according to a 2015 Herald-News story.

On Aug. 30, 2022, two days after the tornado’s 32nd anniversary, Butler went to sleep and never woke up, according to his sister Brandy Butler, Eddie’s caretaker for the last seven years. Eddie was 51.

Richard Butler, Eddie’s father, cared for Eddie in their Plainfield home for 25 years until Richard’s sudden death from a massive heart attack, Brandy said. Brandy’s mother Hettie Wysocki had just died two months before Richard, she said.

Brandy said Richard was a “hero of heroes” and that he and Eddie were the “calm in the storm,” while Brandy was always “the serious one.” Brandy said Eddie told her she was the “lightning in my storm,” the night of Richard’s death, when her new caretaking role began.

“Eddie was a simple person,” Brandy said. “He loved music – Metallica was his favorite. He had a great sense of humor. He’d even laugh at himself.”

Carroll, who met Eddie in the fourth grade, said Eddie was the most laid-back person he knew. Before they had driver’s licenses, they loved talking long walks and playing guitar together.

“He learned by ear, naturally. He didn’t read or write music,” Carroll said. “We played a lot of metal, all Metallica stuff. He was in a garage band for a little while. It was cool for him to be that although they never played in anything other than the garage.”

Carroll said he and Eddie lived on either side of the same street, with about 20 houses in between, Sometimes Eddie would show up at 2 a.m. and say, “Let’s walk to Van Horn Woods,” so they did, Carroll said.

On Aug. 28, 1990, Eddie called Carroll and said he was hungry for McDonald’s. They ate their food in Carroll’s air-conditioned car. Carroll dropped Eddie off at 3:15 p.m.

Shortly after Carroll arrived home, tennis ball-sized hail began pummeling his house. The windows burst and Carroll said he covered himself, his mother, brother a friend with a mattress because they lived on a slab, he said.

Several minutes later, Carroll went outside and saw only devastation. Then Brandy appeared to tell Carroll about Eddie.

Brandy, who was 17 the day of the tornado, said she’d spent the hot, end-of-summer day with her boyfriend near the pool at his house. He brought her home mid-afternoon because she had to work at the former Bob Evans Restaurant on Larkin Avenue in Joliet and wanted to shower first, she said.

Eddie was listening to music in the detached, two-story garage, his favorite spot when he wanted to be alone, she said. Richard and his cousin had built it and it was a “good sturdy garage,” Brandy said.

Brandy had just gotten into the shower when she heard a tapping on the bathroom window and assumed it was Eddie pranking her. Then the bathroom light went out.

So Brandy wrapped herself in towels and stepped out of the bathroom into the dark house. That’s when she realized the power was out and the “tapping” on the windows was hail.

She walked to the front door and looked outside where strong winds were pushing the hedge tops to the ground, she said.

“All of a sudden I heard that train sound,” Brandy said. “And it was loud.”

Brandy said she fled to the basement stairs and reached the landing as the back door flew off. She fled downstairs, thinking about Eddie in the garage the entire time, she said. A few seconds later, Brandy crept back up from the basement and saw the windows in the quiet house were blown out, she said.

“It was like three, four seconds, “Brandy said. “It was all that destruction. In seconds your life is changed in a bad way.”

Brandy said the box elder tree in the front yard was yanked out of the ground and had fallen onto the garage. The roof had fallen onto Eddie, she said.

She got dressed and ran down the street yelling in the rain for help until she heard someone shout, “Watch the wires,” Brandy said.

Back at the house house, she saw neighbors cutting through the garage with chain saws to free Eddie, she said. Brandy said she covered Eddie’s head with a blanket to keep the rain from dripping onto his face and watched, helpless.

“He just wanted to be picked up,” Brandy said. “He was in and out. It was utter chaos.”

In the meantime, Wysocki, who also worked at Bob Evans, was wondering why Brandy never showed up to work, Brandy said.

Brandy remembered hearing the phone ring and wondering how the phone could ring when the house had no power. She remembered answering it and hysterically telling Richard on the other end, “Eddie’s hurt! Eddie’s hurt!”

Carroll said he walked to the house and saw Eddie under the garage, begging to be picked up. Carroll said he told him, “I can’t, man. You have a garage on you.” Then a firefighter told Carroll to “get out of the way,” so Carroll left.

Eddie, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his long hair full of nails and other debris, was placed on a board, loaded into a truck and taken to one of the firehouses and then to the hospital, where Eddie was intubated, Brandy said. Eddie’s collar bone was broken and one of his lungs had collapsed. His eyes were so wide, she said.

“He just looked scared, like anyone would,” she said.

Brandy said a nurse assured her Eddie would be OK. She told the nurse, “But he doesn’t look OK.”

Eddie had surgery to repair his neck. Brandy recalled the rotating bed, the sounds of the machines, how swollen Eddie looked. Eddie had a C7 spinal cord injury, which meant he had little to no sensation or movement below his shoulders.

“His nerves were basically severed,” Brandy said.

During Eddie’s months-long stay in the hospital and at a rehabilitation center, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars due to Eddie having no health insurance, The Herald-News reported on his progress and how the community came together to welcome him home.

While Eddie was in the hospital, members of the Will-Grundy Counties Homebuilders Association volunteered their time to construct a new room for Eddie on the damaged house. The addition had widened doors, hallways and ramps to accommodate Eddie’s wheelchair, the stories said.

Brandy said Eddie filled his days by listening to his music, watching his shows, spending time on the computer, playing video games and occasionally hanging out with friends at his Plainfield home – and Eddie had lots of friends, Carroll said.

But Eddie rarely left the house unless he had a doctor appointment, Brandy said.

Eight years later, Herald-News columnist John Whiteside, who is now dead, wrote a follow-up story.

Eddie told Whiteside about his limited arm movement, details of daily life with a spinal cord injury, how a day without a bladder infection or muscle spasms was a good day, how religion had “gone out the window” for him and that he looked forward to nothing, about wondering why he wasn’t killed.

“The tornado left me in an unrepairable situation,” Eddie told Whiteside. “I wasn’t given a choice about death or this. I guess I’ll just keep on riding out the storm.”

Because of Eddie’s severed nurses, signals from his body to his brain were broken; resulting in autonomic dysreflexia, Brandy said.

With this condition, pain or something amiss in any part of his body can cause blood pressure to rise dangerous high, Brandy said. So it’s up to the caregiver to trouble-shoot the issue.

In 2003, Eddie had a “brain bleed” that forever changed him, Brandy said. He lost his short-term memory and ability to fix any issues with the computer, a real tragedy for someone who was so good with electronics, she said. He was often cold, she said. But, he also became more willing to leave the house, she said.

Because of the extent of Eddie’s care, because of the entwining of their lives, Brandy said “every fiber of her day” is different now that Eddie’s gone.

Carroll praised Eddie’s courage, is amazed Eddie lived so long after his injury and is glad of one thing.

“He’s not in that chair anymore,” Carroll said. “He’s on his feet and he’s walking.”