Stoddard County woman rescued from fallen shed

DEXTER, Mo. -- An Essex woman remained hospitalized this morning after the building in which she was working collapsed, trapping her under the rubble.

Sixty-four-year-old Laura Heppe and her husband, Earl, had been working to dismantle a backyard shed this week; and while Earl Heppe was gone on an errand to Dexter, his wife proceeded by herself to remove more boards from the partially dismantled shed. In doing so, the structure was weakened and collapsed without warning, pinning the woman under the fallen roof. It is not known exactly how long she was trapped under the fallen structure, but she was not discovered until her husband returned home.

Several emergency agencies responded to the Essex home when the call came in at 10:27 a.m. Thursday that a woman was trapped in a fallen structure. Essex emergency responders, Essex Fire Department, Dexter Fire Department and Extrication Team, along with ambulance personnel, converged on the area. Once freed from the structure, Heppe was placed in a waiting ambulance but was airlifted from an open field near Mae Hall Park moments later. Her condition was listed as serious at the time she was airlifted to a Cape Girardeau medical facility.

A call late Thursday to Saint Francis Medical Center revealed that Laura Heppe had no broken bones from the incident but will remain hospitalized for a couple of days, at least, for further observation.

"She's in a lot of pain," said the Heppe's daughter, Cindy Burton, who arrived on the scene before her mother was airlifted out, "but thankfully there are no broken bones."

Burton described her mother's injuries, saying that she is "terribly bruised" and that she has a chipped bone in the knee. Her obvious injuries at the scene appeared to be to the head. Burton said her mother received six stitches to close the wound to her head that was visible at the time of her rescue.

Burton said her mother had told her that she had been working on the shed on her own while her husband was gone for a short time.

"She said she pulled a board off and the roof collapsed without warning," Burton said, trapping her under the shed's roof.

"We're all just so grateful that her injuries are not any worse than what they are."