1007. John Destry Horton
1Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007
Form SS-5.
This database picks up where the SSDI leaves off, with details such as birth date and parents’ names extracted from information filed with the Social Security Administration through the application or claims process.2Kennedy
Today’s Pentecostal Evangel
http://www.tpe.ag.org/Articles2006/4820_Death.cfm.
"During his boyhood near Rush Springs, Okla., John Destry Horton lived across the pasture from Brandy Pittman. In between his periodic teasing and tormenting his neighbor, the 10-year-old Destry turned serious. He told Brandy, then 6, that someday he would marry her.
But that idealistic childhood vow sustained a bump or two along the road to adult reality. At 21, Destry embarked on a new venture: cooking up methamphetamine and dealing illegal drugs.
One day, after he shot up a lethal mixture of crank and heroin, a dazed Destry realized he had pushed too far. In a plea to God to spare his life, Destry promised to serve Him the rest of his life if he survived.
God spared Destry that day in 1996 and the young man made good on his promise, doing everything with evangelistic gusto. From that point on, Destry — who never endured withdrawal symptoms or went through drug rehabilitation — told everyone he met how God intervened to disrupt his descent into death, and how Jesus Christ powerfully transformed him and gave him newfound life.
Unlike Destry, Brandy grew up attending church three times a week. But in her late teens she rebelled.
Destry got her interested in the Lord again. After declining repeatedly, Brandy finally accepted Destry’s invitation to a revival meeting, where she renewed her commitment to the Lord. Destry and Brandy’s friendship blossomed into romance, and the couple wed in 1998.
For a couple of years, Destry and Brandy served as part-time youth pastors in Rush Springs. But Destry yearned to be a full-time firefighter. The day before the birth of their first daughter, Kiley, Destry began working for the fire department in Chickasha, a farming and college community of 18,000. He continued his education and advanced to ambulance paramedic.
The Hortons kept growing spiritually and they began attending Grand Assembly of God in Chickasha in 2003. Destry became the praise and worship leader, and the couple served as youth sponsors.
Destry had a vivacious personality and a contagious laugh. People liked to be around him. With Destry nearby, even the grumpiest person found it difficult to stay in a bad mood.
By early this year, Destry had worked his 5-foot-11-inch, 180-pound broad-shouldered frame into its best shape ever. He lifted weights, jogged miles, and did hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups every day. Seemingly, Destry mastered any physically demanding activity he tried, including snow skiing, water skiing, baseball and basketball.
PERFECT LIFE INTERRUPTED
As 2006 began, Destry anticipated his promotion to engineer (the firefighter who drives the truck), starting March 2.
The Hortons looked as if they had the perfect marriage and the perfect family, which now included 6-year-old Kiley and 3-year-old McKenzie. Life couldn’t have been better. But the perfect life on earth is never permanent.
On, Wednesday, March 1 — Destry’s day off — a series of wildfires swept across drought-stricken southwestern Oklahoma. Destry volunteered to drive a truck for the Acme fire department south of Chickasha.
With that area’s fires extinguished, Destry planned to get in a quick game of golf before the evening service at Grand Assembly. But just as he left the station, Destry received a page that another fire had broken out near Duncan, south of Acme.
“Destry always gave of himself,” recalls Grand Assembly of God Pastor Larry Hatfield. “He didn’t have to go fight the fire. It was his day off.”
Shortly after 4 p.m., Destry phoned Brandy, assuring her that he would be home in time for supper.
Just after 5, the phone in the Horton living room rang. Brandy saw “Duncan Regional Hospital” on the caller identification. Instinctively she knew that Destry had been burned.
A doctor told Brandy he never had seen burns so severe. The physician told her that Destry wouldn’t survive the night.
Brandy rode with a relative to Oklahoma City, 45 minutes north of Chickasha, as a medical helicopter transferred Destry to the Integris Baptist Medical Center in the state capital. At the burn unit, Brandy learned the details.
Destry had arrived upon a surreal scene, where high, dry grass quickly served as tinder spreading blazes from field to field. With winds shifting wildly in tornadic fashion, flames swiftly closed in on Destry and fellow firefighter Larry Crabb.
Inside the hot cab of the truck, Destry removed his helmet, gloves and jacket to drive. As he backed up in the thick smoke, a rear tire of the truck sank into a ditch, knocking Crabb off into a barbed-wire fence.
With visibility near zero, Destry jumped out of the truck to help Crabb. But Destry stepped into a swirling inferno that engulfed his face and upper torso. After the intense flames passed, Crabb saw Destry’s shirt melted to his chest and his boots dissolved onto his feet.
Crabb, despite second- and third-degree burns on his own hands and face, ran for assistance. As he looked back from a hill to check on his comrade, Crabb saw Destry, despite his pain, kneeling by a tree with his hands raised in worship to the Lord.
On the ambulance ride to Duncan, Destry evangelized paramedics and firefighters with some of his final words. At the hospital doctors performed a tracheotomy so that Destry wouldn’t suffocate due to a closed windpipe.
At the burn center, Brandy didn’t recognize her husband because of his enormously swollen, blistered face.
Brandy and Pastor Hatfield mobilized Christians around the country to pray for Destry’s survival and recovery. Destry baffled doctors by surviving the night. And another. Then another.
On the fourth day, doctors removed the mummy-like bandages enveloping Destry from head to toe. They planned to scrape off dead skin and tissue. But Destry had little skin or tissue left. His face had fifth-degree burns, leaving virtually nothing but bone. He had sustained fourth-degree burns everywhere else on his body except his legs.
The wedding vows Brandy had recited eight years earlier came to her mind. This had to be the “for worse” part.
Nevertheless, Brandy assured her husband that he looked handsome and she believed he would be healed. She asked for a sign that he understood. Destry blinked. Brandy implored Destry to wiggle his toes, and he complied. Her spirits soared in the knowledge that her husband hadn’t suffered brain damage and in the expectation that Destry would be restored to health.
Six days into the ordeal, surgeons determined Destry needed both arms amputated at the elbow so that gangrene wouldn’t spread.
After the amputations, doctors told Brandy they could do no more. She consulted with burn specialists around the world in a grasp for a medical solution. None had seen any patient with such critical burns survive so long. They, too, had no cure.
Day after day, Brandy stayed beside her lingering mate, praying and reading her Bible. Over and over again Brandy told Destry she loved him and extolled him for being an awesome husband and father. She encouraged Destry to thank God for binding up his wounds. She saw what remained of his lips moving. As the days progressed, physicians and nurses continued to be dumbfounded.
Visitors packed the third floor of Baptist Hospital for three weeks, openly praying and talking freely about God.
The end came on March 24 as Destry’s weakened heart finally gave out with Brandy standing by his side. He had survived massive injuries for 23 days.
“I would love to tell you he rose from that hospital bed, but he didn’t,” Brandy says.
Initially, Brandy felt anger at God about the length of Destry’s suffering. Yet she is grateful that Destry is no longer in pain in his earthly body. Through the ordeal she grew closer to the Lord.
“God promised He won’t put us through more than we can bear,” she says. “God knows my limitations. Every day I tell God I can’t make it without Him. Now God is my Comforter. He is the One I talk to in the middle of the night. He is the One I run to for help.”
A TESTIMONY OF FAITH
Destry died at 32 and left a 28-year-old widow. Nearly 3,000 people attended a memorial service on March 30, including Gov. Brad Henry. About 1,000 packed into Grand Assembly while the rest watched video hook-ups at four other local churches. Dozens of firefighters, some from New York City, attended the service.
The crowd listened to an earlier church service recording of Destry singing praise and worship. Brandy spoke boldly at the funeral, leaving no doubt about Destry’s final destination. She exhorted those in the audience to get their hearts right with God. Six relatives subsequently made decisions to accept Jesus as their Savior.
People paying their respects lined the 18-mile funeral procession from the church to the Rush Springs burial site.
For weeks afterwards, Brandy received letters from people who attended the funeral describing how a loved one made a salvation decision. The final weeks and death of Destry Horton impacted hundreds of friends, relatives, firefighters, medical personnel, friends and others.
Still, those who haven’t had a spouse die don’t fully understand Brandy’s loss. The oneness of two people joined together becomes most apparent when one is suddenly removed.
The young daughters Destry left behind also have their difficult days, grieving at length. In June, Kiley wrote a love letter to her daddy and sent it up into the sky with balloons. She figured he could see it from heaven.
Meanwhile, Brandy is working as a teacher’s aide in Rush Springs, with aspirations of becoming a schoolteacher. Area residents sponsored fundraisers to help pay for Destry’s medical expenses. News of the tragedy led strangers from around the world to send donations to Brandy.
“I miss Destry every day,” Brandy says. “But I have the peace of knowing that I will see him again.”
For Pastor Hatfield, Destry’s miraculous survival for more than three weeks followed by death has been an enigma.
“It’s been difficult for many people who were praying to understand why he had to die,” Hatfield says. “But we have to trust God. People have been evangelized who wouldn’t have been touched in any other way. There will be more people in heaven because of how this happened.”.".3Social Security Administration Office of Public Inquiries Windsor Park Building 6401 Security Blvd. Baltimore, MD 21235, Social Security Administration Death Index 1935-2014 (Vital Records-death index).
4The Oklahoman News, Oklahoman, The, www.newsok.com, The Oklahoman, PO Box 25125, Oklahoma City, OK 73125.
"staff on Thursday, March 30, 2006, as family and friends gather to remember fallen Chickasha firefighter DESTRY HORTON.
Horton, 32, died Friday at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, three weeks after being severely burned on March 1, 2006, while fighting a fire near Duncan, Oklahoma. Horton, who was volunteering for the Acme Fire Department, was with another firefighter when they entered a smoke-filled area near Duncan and their fire truck got stuck.
Funeral services are set for 2 p.m. Thursday at Grand Assembly of God Church, at 102 W. Almar, in Chickasha.
Gov. Brad Henry issued an order Tuesday mandating that all flags on state property be lowered Thursday to remember Horton. The governor said he plans on attending the funeral.
"Our brave and heroic firefighters routinely risk personal safety for the sake of their fellow Oklahomans," Henry said. "Destry Horton paid the ultimate price for his selflessness, and for that we honor his sacrifice and cherish his memory."
Rep. Joe Dorman, D-Rush Springs, said television sets will be set up at two nearby churches to accommodate overflow spectators. The TVs will carry a live feed of the service.
Horton's body will be escorted from Callaway-Smith-Cobb Funeral Home in Rush Springs to the Chickasha church by Chickasha fire trucks, a police trooper and Oklahoma Highway Patrol car. That procession leaves Rush Springs at 1 p.m.
Following the service, Horton will be buried at Westview Cemetery, just west of Rush Springs.
Destry Horton is survived by his wife, Brandy, two daughters, Kylie, 6, and McKenzie, 3, and his parents, Johnny and Rita Horton."5Find A Grave Records, www.findagrave.com, Find A Grave Memorial# 13812781, Apr 1 2006.
This database contains an index to cemetery and burial details posted on Find A Grave.
1357. Mckenzie Jewell Horton
1Callaway-Smith-Cobb Funeral Home, Callaway-Smith-Cobb Funeral Home, 415 W. Main Marlow, Oklahoma 73055 email: info@callawaysmithcobb.com
Phone: 580-658-5455.2Chickasha Express (Published every afternoon (except Saturdays) and Sunday morning at 302 North 3rd Street, P.O. Drawer E, Chickasha, OK), Jun 22 2015, The Express Star, 302 north 3rd, Chickasha, OK 73018.
McKenzie Jewel Horton, 13, passed away Thursday, June 18, 2015 at her home in Rush Springs. Services will be held at 2:00 PM, Tuesday, June 23, 2015, at the Grand Assembly of God in Chickasha, with Pastors Josh Abbott and Gary Rogers officiating. Burial will be in the Westview Cemetery under the direction of Callaway-Smith-Cobb Chapel in Rush Springs. McKenzie was born Monday, June 10, 2002 in Norman, to John Destry and Brandy (Pittman) Horton. McKenzie lived in Rush Springs all of her life and was a 6th grader at Rush Springs Schools. She was a very social girl who was active in numerous school activities including serving on the student council, and was a member of the Hot Shots and the Jump Team. She loved sports of all kinds and especially softball and snow skiing and, of course, her beloved Rush Springs Redskins and Oklahoma Sooners. McKenzie will always be remembered with a smile on her face and her ability to make anything fun. She loved hanging out with her friends and could always be counted on to play jokes on people, and help brighten anyone's day. McKenzie was a talented and accomplished musician and artist, who loved playing the piano, the guitar, singing, and drawing. She loved being outdoors and enjoyed riding her rip stick and her PaPa's horses. McKenzie was an active member of the Victory Fellowship Church in Chickasha. Survivors include, parents, Brandy and Kevin Simpson of Rush Springs; sister, Kiley Horton of the home; brother, Tristen, Bailey, and Kaden Simpson of the home; grandparents, Rockey and Sheila Pittman of Rush Springs, Warren and Jeri Thomas of Lexington, Johnny and Donna Horton of Rush Springs; great-grandparents, Billy and Wilma Pittman of Rush Springs, Elaine Miller of Rush Springs; several aunts, uncles, and cousins; a host of friends. McKenzie was preceded in death by her father, John Destry Horton."
"Posted: Monday, June 22, 2015 6:19 pm by
The Chickasha Express-Star newspaper3Find A Grave Records, www.findagrave.com, Find A Grave Memorial# 148496950, Jun 30 2015.
This database contains an index to cemetery and burial details posted on Find A Grave.
