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Couple found hugging each other after tree fell on their home, killing them during Hurricane Helene

By The Associated Press

Hurricane Helene-Grandparents This photo provided by Laurel Lindsay shows Marcia and Jerry Savage, who were killed by a tree that fell and crushed their bedroom during Hurricane Helene. (Laurel Lindsay/Second Baptist Church of Beech Island, S.C.) (Laurel Lindsay/AP)

By The Associated Press

BEECH ISLAND, S.C. — As Hurricane Helene roared outside, the wind howling and branches snapping, John Savage went to his grandparents’ bedroom to make sure they were OK.

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“We heard one snap and I remember going back there and checking on them,” the 22-year-old said of his grandparents, Marcia, 74, and Jerry, 78, who were lying in bed. “They were both fine, the dog was fine.”

But not long after, Savage and his father heard a “boom” — the sound of one of the biggest trees on the property in Beech Island, South Carolina, crashing on top of his grandparents’ bedroom and killing them.

“All you could see was ceiling and tree,” he said. “I was just going through sheer panic at that point.”

John Savage said his grandparents were found hugging one another in the bed, adding that the family thinks it was God’s plan to take them together, rather than one suffer without the other.

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“When they pulled them out of there, my grandpa apparently heard the tree snap beforehand and rolled over to try and protect my grandmother,” he said.

They are among the more than 150 people confirmed dead in one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. Dozens of them died just like the Savages, victims of trees that fell on homes or cars. The dead include two South Carolina firefighters killed when a tree fell on their truck.

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