Last injured Toops child released from hospital

~ Family goes home to furnished house with Christmas gifts, all donated.

The family swept away when a wall of water destroyed their house at Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park returned Thursday to a home made ready for a late Christmas celebration.

Tanner Toops, 5, the most critically injured of three children caught in the deluge, was released Thursday afternoon from Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. His family -- park superintendent Jerry Toops, wife Lisa Toops, and siblings Tara, 3, and Tucker, 7 months -- have a home furnished with donations waiting for them in Lesterville, Mo.

"We have a Christmas tree decorated with wrapped gifts for the kids," said Sue Black, who has helped organize a relief fund for the Toops. "They are one of our own, and we like to think we take care of ourselves."

The Toopses' ordeal started shortly before dawn Dec. 14, when a wall in a mountaintop reservoir collapsed, sending 1 billion gallons of water crashing through the park. The reservoir held water used to power AmerenUE's Taum Sauk hydroelectric plant along the Black River.

Jerry Toops was found in a tree about 90 minutes after the deluge. Lisa Toops was found approximately 300 yards away, clutching Tucker in her arms with Tanner by her side. Tara was found nearby.

Tanner was the most critically injured, with severe hypothermia almost stopping his heart. He required skin grafts after he was accidentally burned as rescue workers tried to warm him.

"He still has some bandages on his legs, but today was a day we saw him doing the things a little 5-year-old-boy should be doing," said Bob Davidson, spokesman for Cardinal Glennon.

Donations for the Toops have poured in from residents of Reynolds County, home of Johnson's Shut-Ins, as well as from across the state and the nation, Black said. A fund established at Sun Security Bank in Lesterville held $12,075 as of Thursday afternoon, she said.

That figure includes $4,400 raised at a spaghetti dinner last week at the Lesterville Public Schools but does not include $5,000 pledged by Wal-Mart, Black said. "We have had them from as far away as Los Angeles and Alabama," Black said. "And almost every small town in Missouri and Illinois."

The four-bedroom house the Toops will inhabit was furnished with donations collected by the First Baptist Church of Lesterville. The Rev. Bill Jackson, pastor of the church, said stores have donated furniture and fixtures, individuals have donated clothing, and church members have worked to make the house ready.

"It has been very heartening to see the love that has been poured out in our society today," Jackson said.

The church has also set up a bank account at the First State Community Bank branch in Ironton, Jackson said. He declined to disclose how much has been collected.

Workers at the Department of Natural Resources, Jerry Toops' employer, have contributed in excess of $8,000, said Doug Eiken, director of the state parks division.

Toops was preparing to take a new, more responsible job in Lebanon, Mo., when the reservoir ruptured. The job will wait, Eiken said. "He needs to reconnect with his family and settle back into more of a normal routine," he said. "When he feels he is ready to make the transition, we will work with him on that."

Repairs to the Toops' life may be well under way, but fixing the damage to Johnson's Shut-Ins will take much longer. AmerenUE must foot the bill for clean up and restoration, state officials have said. The costs and extent of that work remain to be determined, Eiken said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126