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Henryville, Indiana
A resident sifts through debris after a tornado in Henryville, Indiana. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP
A resident sifts through debris after a tornado in Henryville, Indiana. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

US tornadoes: toddler found in field dies after coming off life support

This article is more than 12 years old
15-month-old Angel Babcock was found after storms killed her parents and two siblings and destroyed their mobile home

A toddler who was found in a field after tornadoes destroyed her home in the American midwest has died after being taken off life support.

The death of 15-month-old Angel Babcock of New Pekin, Indiana, brings the overall toll from Friday's storms to 39 across five states. Rescuers were still going door to door in rural areas in the hope of ruling out more deaths.

Angel was found after her family's mobile home was destroyed in the storms. Her father, mother and two siblings were killed.

When she arrived at the Kosair children's hospital in Louisville on Friday night she was opening her eyes – a hopeful sign, the chief nursing officer, Cis Gruebbel, said.

But on Saturday the swelling in her brain did not decrease. As the day went on, her eyes stopping moving and there was no sign of brain activity.

Medical staff told the family there was nothing more they could do, and relatives decided to end life support on Sunday.

Crews were working to return power and mobile phone service to damaged areas, but it could be days before they are fully restored. In Indiana, about 2,800 homes were without power, down from 8,000 in the hours after the storms, but in some hard-hit areas, such as Henryville, a substation and transmission lines need to be rebuilt, which could take up to a week.

Almost 19,000 customers were without power in Kentucky, according to the state's Public Service Commission.

Phone companies were trying to help residents by setting up mobile charging and email stations so they could communicate, while portable towers were brought in to boost signals.

On Sunday, people gathered to try to find out what had happened to loved ones and friends. Mobile phone signal was patchy, the internet was down and electricity was indefinitely interrupted.

In many cases, word-of-mouth conversations replaced text messages, Facebook status updates and phone calls.

"It's horrible. It's things you take for granted that aren't there any more," Jack Cleveland, a 50-year-old Census Bureau worker from Henryville, said.

Randy Mattingly, a 24-year-old mechanic, said he and his Henryville neighbours had passed on information by word of mouth to make sure people were OK. He said state police had quickly set up two gathering points for adults and children at a church and a nearby community centre.

At Sunday's mass at St Francis Xavier Catholic church in Henryville, Father Steve Schaftlein turned the church into an information exchange, asking the 100 or so in attendance to stand up and share what they knew.

Another round of storms earlier last week killed 13 people in the midwest and south. The tornadoes were the latest in a string of severe weather episodes that have ravaged the US heartland in the past year.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Tornadoes leave many dead in US midwest and south – video

  • Tornadoes sweeps US midwest and south, killing dozens

  • Tornadoes batter Alabama with US braced for more bad weather

  • US midwest hit by tornadoes – in pictures

  • Tornadoes rip through US midwest, leaving at least 13 dead

  • Tornadoes kill 12 in US midwest - video

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