Roy Campbell was one of the first firefighters to respond to the July 17, 1981, Hyatt Regency collapse in Kansas City, Missouri.  

What he experienced that night changed his life. 

Reports said 114 people died and 216 were injured when the fourth-floor skywalk collapsed, causing a chain reaction that collapsed the second-story skywalk and sent tons of concrete, metal, and debris down on a tea dance in the lobby of the hotel’s atrium.

Campbell and emergency personnel worked through the night pulling the dead and injured from the rubble. Campbell and others relived the horror weeks later during interviews with ABC News' show 20/20. 

Campbell retired from the Fire Department in 1988, knowing God had something new for his life. He wanted to spend it in service to others, to make a positive difference in people’s lives.

Using his construction skills, Campbell and his wife, Caroline, worked on various projects for the Church of the Nazarene, and in 1992, they were appointed as first-team missionaries and worked as Work & Witness coordinators, with responsibilities of compassionate ministries and church planting in Moscow, Russia. 

After the Moscow assignment ended in 1994, Campbell, along with Caroline, continued to help churches and ministries with various projects around the world.

Roy and Caroline now live in Bolivar, Missouri, where he is a senior adult ministry pastor at Bolivar First Church of the Nazarene. Their son, Rod Campbell, is the senior pastor.

Years after the Hyatt Regency collapse, Campbell still remembers the chaos and tragedy of that night. He recently sat down with KCTV5 as the Kansas City area recognized the 30th anniversary of what was considered at the time the worst structural disaster in U.S. history.

Watch Campbell’s recent television interview with KCTV5 News in the image viewer below.