The Rackley family endures tremendous tragedy and heartbreak after a tornado ripped through their Missouri home on Friday, killing nine-year-old Annistyn and injuring her two younger sisters and parents.
Annistyn was a “bubbly” little girl, her great aunt Sandra Hooker told People. “She was the best kid. She was the strongest kid.”
The nine-year-old was born with a rare liver disease and underwent substantial surgery when she was only two months old.
“Anni was a miracle,” Hooker told People. “She was born with biliary atresia. Eighty percent of the children with this disease have to have a liver transplant by the time they are 18.”
Hooker says Anni’s parents “encouraged her and supported her to live life to the full.”
Volunteers, mostly employees from the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, help salvage possessions from the destroyed home of Martha Thomas, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region several days earlier, in Mayfield, KY, Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
“And she did,” Hooker told People, “right up till the tornado killed her. So God gave us a miracle with Anni.”
Only a week before the storm hit, the Rackley’s moved into their new home near Caruthersville, Missouri, People reports. Parents Meghan, 32, and Trey, 37, designed their home to have safeguards against storms so they could be safe with their three daughters Annistyn, Avalinn, 7, and Lani, 3, according to Meghan’s aunt Sandra Hooker.
“We’ve talked about it several times,” Hooker told People. “Where’s their safe place going to be? Are the girls going to know? Meghan and Trey had discussed it.”
The family decided the windowless, interior bathroom was the best spot to hunker down in the event of a major storm, Hooker said. On Friday, as the dastardly weather approached their home, Hooker texted her niece.
Hooker recounted to People:
About 7:23, I texted Meghan and I told her, “The storms are about 15 minutes away. Get ready.” She texted back, and then she texted me again. And I texted her and said, “The sirens are going off.” And she texted back and she said, “I’m in the bathroom.” And she sent me a Snapchat picture of the girls in the bathtub.
“Trey said Lani had gotten out of the tub and he got on top of her, on the floor,” Hooker added. “And Meghan was over the tub on the two older girls. And he said he could hear it coming. And it was like the house ‘popped.'”
Trey told Hooker that as the tornado ripped through the home, he was launched in the air and “trying to hold on to Lani.”
Once Trey was airborne, he was tossed into the mud.
“He immediately got up and started trying to find his family, because there’s not a better daddy in this world, not a better husband, even though he has a broken vertebrae and a broken rib and all these cuts and abrasions and things on his body,” Hooker told People.
The father then found Avalinn.
“When she got to the hospital and the doctors and the nurses asked her, do you know what happened to you? She told ’em yes,” Hooker recalled. She said, ‘I was flying around in that tornado.’ And she said, ‘I prayed to Jesus to take care of me. That tornado just spit me out and threw me in the ground, in the mud.'”
Meghan, a kindergarten teacher, is unresponsive in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury and several broken bones, People reports.
“Meghan is fighting for her life,” Hooker told People. “But I do believe a miracles.”
An American flag hangs from a damaged tree Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in Mayfield, Ky. President Joe Biden is headed to Kentucky to survey damage and offer federal support for the victims of the devastating tornadoes that killed dozens and left thousands more in the region without heat, water or electricity. More than 30 tornadoes tore through Kentucky and four other states over the weekend. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
When she underwent surgery for lacerations to her abdomen, both of her lungs collapsed, Hooker told People. The 32-year-old is now breathing after a tracheotomy.
Seven-year-old Avalinn remained in a pediatric intensive as of Monday.
Hooker says Avalinn’s stomach was distended, and she suffered several broken vertebrae. She was scheduled to undergo surgery on Wednesday, where she would receive “rods and things,” Hooker told People. Additionally, a specialist was called in to clean out the seven-year-old’s eyes, which were filled with debris.
Three-year-old Lani was released from the hospital on Sunday with hairline fractures to her vertebrae, Hooker stated. Lani was brought to see Avalinn in the pediatric intensive care unit.
“‘Where’s Anni? can you take me to see Anni?'” the seven-year-old asked her grandmother, according to Hooker.
“They knew that this was gonna come,” Hooker told People. “The child psychologist came into the room and helped her grandmother tell her. You could just tell how much it affected her.”
Avalinn asked her grandmother, “Am I going die,” Hooker recalled. “And her grandmother assured her that she was not gonna die. Then she said, ‘Then I’ll have to be the big sister to Lani.'”
Hooker told People the Rackley’s new home was destroyed:
There’s very little left. Her car was moved probably 30, 40 feet from where it was and turned around. Trey’s Jeep was probably a hundred yards from the house where it had been parked. … They had an acre lot surrounded on three sides by a field. The trees in the front yard were uprooted. The front door was in a tree behind the house. The stuff was just strewn everywhere.
On Sunday, cleanup and rescue workers found the doll Annistyn held in the Snapchat that Meghan sent Hooker moments before the tornado hit, the Associated Press (AP) reports. The doll, named MawMaw, was treasured by the nine-year-old.
“They brought Baby MawMaw to me, and I’m cleaning her up so that Ava can have Baby MawMaw,” Hooker said, per the AP.
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