In a viral photo viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, a doctor greets his very young son through a glass storm door. Dr. Jared Burks is currently part of the front line fighting against the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 illness. Days after the adorable photo was snapped, Burks was narrowly missed by a tornado.
The photo, taken in Arkansas by Alyssa Burks, shows Dr. Burks pressing his hand against the glass doors and his son doing the same. Due to his exposure to COVID-19 patients, Dr. Burks is keep a social distance from his family to keep them safe from the virus. However, the novel coronavirus isn’t the only threat this spring.
Disaster relief organizations are scrambling to respond to the numerous tornadoes that have already caused damage throughout the Southeast and Midwest this season. Arkansas has been no different, having suffered a major tornado Saturday afternoon. When Alyssa Burks saw the tornado on the news Saturday, she called her husband to warn him of the impending danger.
As a precaution, Dr. Burks has been living apart from Alyssa and their young son. As such, when he received the call from his wife, he implored her to hunker down and made the move to do the same himself. Dr. Burks, who is in his first year as a resident at University of Arkansas Medical Center in Jonesboro, was on his first day off in two weeks.
As Alyssa hunkered down and waited for the tornado to pass, she says she heard a horrible sound. The home was struck by the tornado as it cut through the neighborhood. Dr. Burks, meanwhile, was sheltering in the closet of the master bedroom where he was staying. The tornado narrowly missed him.
Photos the Burks shared with reporters after the tornado showed their home devastated by the tornado. The roof had been partially torn off, several beams and joists had fallen over, and there was rubble all over their living room.
Poetically, the glass door where the viral photo was taken had been blown off of its hinges. The place Dr. Burks had stood only a few days before was directly in the path of the destructive tornado. According to Alyssa, Dr. Burks intends to go back to work in a few days, just as soon as they can assess the damage from the tornado.
