Hospital Chaplain Serves Up Hope

“Up until this point in my life, I had never even been to a funeral before. Never been around death, never been around trauma. And just a matter of seconds. I was completely surrounded by it,” said Thomas McDorr. He was at the Indiana State Fair in 2011 when a unexpected storm blew the stage over.

Thomas continued, “I was in the grandstands with my fiancée when the stage came down and crashed on the crowd below it. I jumped from my seat. I told my fiancée to stay put and I raced down to help those who had been crushed and trapped underneath the stage. The first person I got to to help, somebody started doing CPR on that person and they were deceased. I just kept going from person to person, trying to help where I could. The first several people that I got to to help were dead. And then I found a young kid that was bleeding from a head wound. I took my shirt off and helped bandage his head. It was really chaotic, a lot of people running around screaming, people laying on the ground, injured. I remember very vividly people just collapsing to the ground and crying out to God. I didn't really know what to do so I started holding hands with people and praying. Some people that were injured but not too serious to go right away on the ambulance stayed and prayed with them.”

“That night when I when I went to bed, I was awake every hour with nightmares, with images of the people that had died. Nightmares of the stage falling on me.”

Thomas continued, “I suffered all that night and I wasn't able to sleep. The next morning was a Sunday, and I went to church. I was tired, I was shocked, I was numb. I remember talking to God that morning during the worship service and just saying, like, 'I can't - I can't handle this and I need you to help me.' The best way I can describe it would be like being wrapped in a...in a warm blanket and just felt the presence of God. I felt just a weight come off of me that morning in that service. And I felt like God had really done something. From that moment, I've never had any kind of nightmares or acute stress symptoms or PTSD.” 

“So after the Indiana State Fair stage collapse, I went on to graduate from Bible College, going into Bible College. Once I got back behind the pulpit, I didn't feel quite fulfilled doing that type of ministry. So, it's about five years of kind of bouncing around from ministry to ministry, trying to figure out like what I was supposed to do, what God wanted me to do for His kingdom. Through just a lot of searching, I happened to like stumble upon hospital chaplaincy. I did my internship at a local level-one trauma center where I was put in rooms with trauma patients. That reminded me of the people that I had seen at the state fair. The first week of being in the hospital, it clicked for me. I felt confirmation. It felt right, like I was doing what God wanted me to do, but also felt like I was making a difference.”

Six years later, Thomas has ministered to thousands of patients.

Thomas stated, “I'm dealing with people that are coming into the emergency room from a car accident, from a shooting, from a fall, or a variety of other ways that people can accidentally get injured. What's unique about trauma patients is that for the most part, life was completely normal one moment, and then just in a matter of seconds, their life has completely been changed. It's very shocking. It's traumatic. When myself or another chaplain meets them in that trauma bay at the hospital, we're there to provide the emotional support, the spiritual support if needed. But we're really trying to get in there, talk to the patient, and really normalize their feelings and experience. I think there's no better way to show love to people than to be there for them on some of their darkest days.”

Thomas concluded, “I would never have imagined 10, 11 years ago doing work in a hospital. It just wasn't even on the radar at all. But it's turned into so much more than I could have ever imagined. That one moment really shifted my life and ministry and put me on a path to be able to touch the lives of thousands of people.”