‘Hold on to me.' Victim saved fiancee in violent tornado that hit Central KY

Yahoo

01-06-2025

When Ronnie Hill and his fiance Tonya Orberson heard a tornado with its 115 mph winds barreling down on their Washington County home right around 7 a.m. Friday morning, they raced to the laundry room.
Ronnie laid of top of Tonya and told her, 'No matter what, you hold on to me.'
'She said all of a sudden, they just all went up in the air. Her and Ronnie were still holding hands, Lashanna Gibson, who is Orberson's daughter, told the Herald-Leader Saturday.
'She was screaming, and Ronnie was saying, 'Do not let go.''
The raging tornado lifted and destroyed their home, sending the couple flying.
'They ended up beside the pond. They were still laying right beside of each other whenever they hit the ground, Gibson said.
'Mom said she woke up and she was hollering for him. He wouldn't answer her. She looked over and she could tell that he was already gone. '
'He protected her until his last breath,' Gibson said. 'He was a true hero.'
The 48-year-old Ronnie, the only person who died in Friday's EF2 tornado that struck Washington County, and Tonya got engaged to be married in late April.
They hadn't yet set a wedding date.
Tonya was at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital Saturday with a broken back, a broken arm, a dislocated elbow and a large cut on her head, Gibson said.
Jack Coleman, a former state lawmaker and father of Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, said Ronnie worked for him as a contractor.
Coleman was the project manager during the construction of All Together Recovery, a 50-bed residential addiction treatment center for men in Danville.
Coleman worked with Ronnie, who continued to oversee maintenance and remodeling at the center's apartments after construction was completed.
'He could do anything,' he said Saturday.
'We hired Ronnie last summer. He was wonderful. He had just come out of recovery. He had a powerful testimony. He gave people hope that they could be successful in recovery, too.
'He was really a goodhearted fellow,' Coleman added. 'He wanted to help people.'
Coleman said when he learned on Friday that Ronnie had died, 'I just couldn't believe it.'
Mark La Palme, a consultant at the All Together Recovery Center, said the men in recovery who lived in the apartments where Ronnie was a maintenance man and remodeler, cried when they heard he died.
'He had a ton of past to overcome, but he did it,' said LaPalme.
'He did it with grace and mercy and style. Ronnie would literally have given you his last penny, his last gallon of gas, the shirt off of his back.
'That's the kind of guy that Ronnie Hill was.'