Man with special needs suffers horrifying injuries after being struck by a TORNADO
David Krell was in his home in London, Kentucky on Friday when the twister ripped apart the town as part of a terrifying storm system that left a trail of destruction across multiple states and killed almost two dozen people.
Krell's sister Shawn Cupp, who is his primary caregiver, said she feared for her brother's life when she got off work Friday night and was told their home was entirely leveled by the tornado. And she was horrified to learn how badly he'd been injured.
'Unfortunately, he does remember it. He said he heard the freight train, and he knew it was over,' Cupp told WKYT.
Krell was found under rubble by neighbors when they heard him yelling for help, and Cupp said he told her the last thing he recalled was being slammed into a wall and passing out.
When he woke up, Krell found that he couldn't move, and the force of the storm threw him 'about 80 feet from the trailer,' Cupp said.
She said the neighbors' hearing her brother's screams saved his life, and even though he suffered a horrific spinal cord injury that has left him paralyzed, she believes a guardian angel protected his life.
'When our mother passed away, we had an urn. The urn was found intact...right beside him,' she said.
Krell's sister Shawn Cupp, who is his primary caregiver, said she got off work Friday night and was told their home was entirely leveled by the tornado (pictured)
The siblings' home was among thousands of structures that were destroyed by the severe storm system that tore through the Ohio Valley on Friday night.
Forecasters said wind gusts peaked at over 170mph, and at its widest point the storm system stretched across a mile as it ripped apart neighborhoods and left over 100,000 without power.
Cupp said despite her brother's severe injuries, he is in good spirits after surviving the near-death experience.
'You know, he's laughing. He's just happy to be alive,' she said.
In a GoFundMe set up to help the family after they lost everything, Krell's niece said the force of the tornado impact 'completely crushed' his C6 and C7 vertebrae, and his spinal paralysis also caused his arms to become 'unusable.'
'He can feel them and move them but he says they just hurt horribly. He also had a brain bleed, damage to the artery on the back of the neck, and several compressed fractures in his spine,' the fundraiser read.
Krell's niece did not specify his special needs, but said he had been taken care of by Cupp since their mom passed away in August 2021 and is his primary caregiver.
The family said they now need funds to move into a wheelchair-accessible home, but Cupp told WKYT that they are taking things one day at a time and are grateful to have each other.
'It's gonna be a long road, just trying to put everything back together and get prepared for him,' she added.
Krell was far from the only victim in the severe storms in the small town of London, with Kentucky couple Paul and Gail Cline each losing an arm when a tornado tore apart their home.
The couple, both in their late 60s, were hunkered down as a 170mph twister moved through the area.
In what could have been their final moments, the couple - who have been married for 29 years - held each other tightly as the storm raged on, sending sheet rock and shattered glass flying through the air.
When the terrifying tornado finally settled, a neighbor rushed to the ruins of the Clines' home, where Paul and Gail were crying for help.
'When they were found, they were holding each other, and that's why they lost opposite arms,' Brandy Bowman, one of the Clines' nieces, told WLKY. 'Because they were holding on to each other, and whatever impacted them impacted them at the same time.'
Officials said at least 18 people died in the tornadoes as they swept through the Ohio Valley on Friday night and into the weekend.
It comes as the city of St. Louis, Missouri fired its Emergency Management Director, Sarah Russell, after she failed to activate tornado sirens.
Officials said Russell exposed critical failures in the city's emergency response systems and left residents unprepared for the imminent storm system.
The City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) director has since been placed on paid administrative leave, Mayor Cara Spencer announced on Tuesday, saying she wanted to 'provide accountability' after the life-saving alerts weren't deployed.
In a statement, Spencer said CEMA failed to 'alert the public to dangers.'
'Commissioner Russell has served our city for years and is a person of goodwill, but I cannot move on from this without providing accountability and ensuring that our emergency management is in trusted hands,' the mayor said.
Spencer said an internal investigation into the siren failure revealed 'multiple' issues, prompting her decision to seek an external investigation of CEMA.
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