VIDEO: FedEx worker survives tornado while locked outdoors
PAINCOURTVILLE, La. -- A Louisiana woman forced to weather a tornado without shelter is now sharing her story.
With winds hitting 140 miles per hour, she managed to hold on for her life.
"To be alive today, I'm thankful," said David Sagona, Sagona's Hardware, told WAFB-TV.
Sagona walked away able to tell his story. He owns Sagona's Hardware in Paincourtville. The store was decimated. Sagona made all his employees get in the bathrooms and upstairs in the offices before the twister hit.
"As I was closing the door to the bathroom, my side wall got sucked out. I actually saw the side wall get sucked out," Sagona said.
This weekend, Sagona attempted to check his security cameras and if they happened to catch anything. It was then he saw a woman come to the doors, pull on them and find they're locked. Debris begins to fly, and seconds later, it looks like a big explosion.
Kyra Johnson is that woman. She had just made her FedEx deliveries to Sagona's from the back door. She came out and looked up.
"I had never seen the sky swirl so pretty. It was gray, but it was pretty. So first thing you think, 'Let me tape it. I want to show people,'" she said.
In the video she recorded, you can see the tornado, but Johnson says she had such tunnel vision that she never noticed it. Exactly two minutes later, it was right over her.
"I just braced myself right here between the Coke machine, and I wasn't even holding on, it was just to brace myself," she said.
That Coke machine fell over. How did she survive?
"God!" she said. "There's no explaining it, God, because after I seen the video, I didn't know what it really looked like, I just figured I was in a tornado."
Sagona did not know Johnson prior to the tornado. Now he says God truly had her in his hands.
"You will always be part of our family," he said.
