The tornado hit, the roof peeled, and farmer Leo fell from the sky

A month after twisters tore through Ottawa, injured senior still recovering in hospital

Leo Muldoon, now 78 and gone grey, grew up on the farm where he nearly died Sept. 21. He was one of 12 kids raised in an old brick homestead with no running water, set deep on a fertile plain around Dunrobin.

Muldoon was born with straw in his boots, as they say, a farmer before the boy became a man, quitting school after Grade 8 to work with his father on the 100 acres, hauling everything with horses, heating the house with wood, getting used to the newfangled electric that arrived in 1948.

A bear of a man, he is a plain dealer — when he speaks at all — and has this wonderfully sneaky sense of humour. (When asked why he plays euchre four times a week, he answered: “For the exercise.” Or his response to how he learned to fix so many machines? “By breaking them.”)

For the first time this week, Muldoon spoke about the tornado that ripped through Dunrobin, its 250 km/h winds throwing him off a tin roof — then throwing the entire roof — leaving him among the most seriously injured in the weather calamity that devastated the village.

“I went up. A big gust came and I was down. And that’s about it for that,” he said in his hospital room at the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital.

“I came down a lot quicker than I went up.”

Muldoon said he was working about half a kilometre from the house that Friday afternoon, tidying up some hay in a shed, fiddling around on his tractor, which is pretty much his favourite thing to do, especially since the last of the 20 cattle left.

“I heard a piece of tin rattling on the roof,” he said, so he fetched a hammer and some nails and went up about six metres high to fasten the shaky metal.

“I thought I’d go up and nail it down before it blew off and I didn’t see it coming. But it was right behind me.” As he tried to descend the ladder, the wind caught him and, “phish-phish,” he was airborne, landing about 10 metres from the shed on the hard ground.

“I couldn’t move.” His finger had a deep cut and a rafter had banged up his face. The hay shed — and four similar buildings on the property — were destroyed. So he waited, lying on his side, in pain.

It wasn’t long before a neighbour, Carlos Sendao, came to check on Leo’s wife Adele, 75, who was in the bungalow and not even aware of the tornado. (“She can sleep through anything,” Leo said, just to get a rise out of Adele, his wife of 48 years, and who, by the way, was very much awake that afternoon.)

Lying on the ground, Leo said he did not panic. “No. It was a long piece from dark. And I’m only afraid of the dark. I knew they’d miss me.”

Sendao found him near the wrecked shed, called an ambulance and, within 10 or 15 minutes, Muldoon was being hauled away on a stretcher — the most painful part of the ride, he said.

Though he was conscious on the way to the Civic, he was, in fact, a bit of a mess. Nine fractures in seven ribs, and lungs that were collapsing. He was heavily sedated and put on a breathing machine in ICU, his head atop a neck brace, an octopus of tubes stuck in the old farmer. Things looked grim. Adele said doctors told her to gather the kids around, so the three daughters were called from Toronto, unsure if they were coming to a bedside vigil or funeral.

“That was the worst drive,” said the oldest of the three, Melanie Armstrong, 43.

Tests showed there was no serious damage to his spine and his cognition seemed good, so worries about a head injury were lessened. After the first 48 to 72 hours, he was out of imminent danger.

He’s now had all of his tubes removed, is walking a little, eating real food again, and being prepped for a stint of rehabilitation. His room is filled with get-well cards, as the family is well-known in the Dunrobin area. Adele, whom he met on a sleigh ride about 55 years ago, has almost lived in his room for a month.

“They’re the heart and soul of my recovery,” he said of his wife and girls. And, for a moment, his face went a little sideways and, just maybe, there was something stuck in the old farmer’s eye. He would be going home, he would ride his John Deere again, he would survey the soybean and broken sheds, he would walk the soil his father and grandfather walked.

“This has been an ordeal,” said Adele, a retired teacher, “but it’s going to end well.”

I went up. A big gust came and I was down. And that’s about it for that. I came down a lot quicker than I went up.”