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