CLARKESVILLE, Tenn. — A man found his 4-month-old son alive in a tree after he and the child were picked up by a tornado that tore through Clarksville, Tennessee, last weekend, according to multiple reports.
The National Weather Service said the tornado touched down just after 1:40 p.m. on Fort Campbell in Kentucky and intensified as it moved south, destroying businesses and homes. Three people died and 62 others were injured, officials said.
Sydney Moore, 22, told WZTV that she and her boyfriend were home in Clarksville with their children, 1-year-old Princeton and 4-month-old Lord, when 150-mile-an-hour winds picked their trailer up off its foundation. She told the news station that she jumped on the child closest to her, Princeton, as the walls began to shake.
“The roof came off first, the tip of the tornado came down and picked up the bassinet with my baby, Lord, in it,” Moore told WSMV-TV. “He was the first thing to go up.”
Moore’s boyfriend, Aramis Youngblood, tried to grab the baby.
“He was just holding on to the bassinet the whole time, and they went into circles, he said, and then they got thrown,” Moore told WSMV.
On a GoFundMe page started to support the family, Moore’s sister said the trailer was picked up, thrown and then picked up again before it was all over. Moore said she and Princeton ended up trapped under a collapsed wall, but she was able to get them out and find Youngblood, WZTV reported.
For about 10 minutes, Lord was nowhere to be found.
“We were screaming for each other,” she told WZTV. “I just remember asking, ‘Where’s my baby!’ and my child’s father said he didn’t know.”
She told WSMV that she thought the worst had happened.
“I was pretty sure he was dead and we weren’t going to find him,” she said. “But he’s here, and that’s by the grace of God.”
Youngblood ended up finding Lord a few yards from the wrecked remains of their home, lying in a downed tree in the pouring rain, WSMV reported.
Moore told WZTV that it was “like somebody placed him in this tree.”
“All he had was a gash on the side of his face,” Moore said. “It had to have been God.”
Family members said Youngblood suffered a broken arm and shoulder while Lord had to have a cut to his ear glued shut. Otherwise, injuries were described a “minor cuts and bruises.”
The family lost all their belongings in the tornado, but Moore said the community has rallied around them as they search for new housing.
