Plans released for park at St. John's location

Plans for a new city park at the location of the old St. John's Hospital have been released this week. St. John's was destroyed in the May 22, 2011, tornado:

From KOAM's report:

There's already a small pavilion at the old St. John's Hospital location at 26th and McClelland Boulevard. Soon, there will be much more.

"I was working overtime at the station number three," says Kevin Theilen, a Joplin resident. "Our crew, when it (old St. John's Hospital) got hit, we got called to St. John's Hospital."

Theilen was a Joplin firefighter at the time of the tornado. As he looks over where St. John's Hospital used to be, there's bare land with foundations holding up memories. Theilen says many of those memories are too horrific to share.

He says there's a fine line between remembering what happened, and going "too far."

"I don't like to celebrate it," says Theilen.

City officials hope a new park at the old hospital's location will be the perfect mixture of remembering the past, yet letting the future heal.

KOAM TV 7