SELLERSBURG, Ind. (WDRB) -- Stephanie Decker likely saved her kids' lives 10 years ago during the Henryville tornadoes, and the way she has dealt with her severe injuries has impacted them every day since.
The Deckers knew severe weather was headed their way on March 2, 2012. She texted her husband Joe to tell him "the whole house was shaking."
That's when Stephanie and the children headed to the basement for cover. She wrapped 8-year-old Dominic and 5-year-old Reese in a blanket and shielded them with her body as 175-mile-per-hour winds obliterated their house, piling beams and rubble on top of all three of them.
IMAGES | 2012 Henryville, Indiana tornado flattened homes and destroyed lives
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
"One window broke, and I knew, and I said to myself, 'Oh my Lord, my house is going down,'" Stephanie recalled in a 2012 interview with WDRB a few days after the storm. "The pillars, the steal beams, the bricks, everything from my house was hitting me in the back. I remember having a steal beam fall right on my leg."
Stephanie could hear her kids screaming from inside the blanket.
"Dominic at one point would say, 'Mommy I need you to save me!'" she said.
At one point, Stephanie tried to move the beam off her leg.
"Large amounts of blood started coming out," she recalled in the 2012 interview. "I knew my leg was severed or it was barely attached."
Then Dominic spotted a second tornado headed right for them. The mother ignored her injuries to once again protect her kids.
"I saw a brick coming at my daughter's direction," she said. "I maneuvered my back left and right dodging so I would take the hit."
Just as Stephanie thought she would lose hope, she heard a sheriff deputy's voice and cried out: "You got to save me! I'm dying!" she recalled during the 2012 interview. "He goes, 'You're not going to die. You're going to make it. You're going to be fine.'"
Once at the hospital, doctors had to amputate Stephanie's legs, one below the knee, the other just above it.
"I'm just a mom," she said afterwards. "I wanted to do anything I could to protect them."
"I'm thankful, I really am," Joe said during an interview. "That first day I told everybody, 'I could have gotten to that house and found three dead people.'"
IMAGES | A look back at the devastation of the 2012 Henryville, Indiana tornado
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Damage from the Henryville, Indiana tornado on March 2, 2012. (WDRB File image)
Both children avoided serious injury, and now, 10 years later they are grateful and amazed at how their mother fought to walk again and be an example for them.
"I know I couldn’t have done it," Dominic said. "It’s really amazing how quick she got back and how she kept a positive mindset through it all. That really helped me and my sister grow as people when we were younger too."
Pictured: Dominic Decker praises his mother, Stephanie Decker, in an interview with WDRB in March 2022, 10 years after she shielded him and his sister from the tornadoes that destroyed their home in Henryville, Ind., on March 2, 2012. (WDRB photo)
Dominic is now 18 and fulfilling his dream of playing college baseball next year in Colorado. His sister, Reese, plays basketball on the Silver Creek High School girls team that made it to the state finals two years in a row, winning it all last year.
"I’m always thankful for what she’s done," Reese said. "I mean, she’s done a lot for us. I mean, we wouldn’t be here without her of course. We wouldn’t be doing everything we love without her."
Pictured: Reese Decker praises her mother, Stephanie Decker, in an interview with WDRB at Silver Creek High School in March 2022, 10 years after Stephanie shielded her and her brother from the tornadoes that destroyed their home in Henryville, Ind., on March 2, 2012.
The Deckers moved after the tornado to build a new home near Sellersburg, a ranch home that makes it easier for Stephanie to get around. Another feature of the home is a result of the tornado: a safe room in the basement.
Stephanie’s husband Joe said that even though they don’t think about the 2012 tornado very much, they had to have a safe harbor.
"You can say it’s overkill all you want, but we were not going to get caught in that situation again," he said.
Pictured: a tornado shelter in the southern Indiana home of Stephanie Decker and her family. They moved there after their Henryville home was destroyed by tornadoes on March 2, 2012.
And it almost did happen again. Joe, a baseball coach at Silver Creek High School, was considering a college coaching job that would have moved the family to Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Not long after he turned it down, an EF-3 tornado with 165 mile per hour winds destroyed many homes there and caused several deaths.
The Deckers have only used the room in their new home a few times so far, including Dec. 10, 2021, the night a tornado flattened Mayfield and Dawson Springs, Kentucky.
Stephanie said she has no problems with pain from wearing her prosthetics. She doesn’t suffer from the phantom pain that can often follow injuries similar to what she suffered. Now she’s focused on helping others who’ve lost limbs with the Stephanie Decker Foundation.
Stephanie's kids help at the camps put on by the foundation, and when the tornado hit Kentucky in December, her foundation stepped in to help. Dominic said working with kids at those camps changed him.
"Teaching kids with, that are missing a limb and helping those kids and being around them, it taught them a sensitivity to everybody, to be more understanding of everybody," Stephanie said.
When you walk in the Decker home now, you will see two big dogs, a lot of big smiles and hear plenty of thanks from the mother who made national news after sacrificing for her children.
And Stephanie said she now draws on her family's strength.
"I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be where I'm at without them," she said. "Because they push me to get back up on my feet. I could not be prouder of both of them."
Related Stories:
- Don't call her disabled -- Stephanie Decker makes a new life
- Stephanie Decker returns home from rehab
- People Magazine honors Henryville mom who lost legs shielding children from deadly tornado
- Henryville mother who lost legs while saving her children leaves hospital
- Mom loses legs saving her kids from an EF4 tornado
- 5 homes, 3 generations, 1 horrific day: Family reflects on devastating 2012 Henryville tornado
- Exhibit remembering Henryville tornado set to open Wednesday at Clark County Museum
- Small updates to a home's structure could mean surviving a tornado, saving your home
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