His body is still bruised, but he says he’s happy he’s still alive: Jemarion Hart spent nearly seven hours in agony under the rubble of a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, which was leveled on Friday by a tornado that meteorologists and U.S. historians power.
“I’m just happy to be alive,” said the 21-year-old African-American, who got a job 10 days ago at the Mayfield Consumer Products plant.
It was a shift in the building, in the western part of the small town, which was almost erased from the map due to the tornado. All that was left of the building was a pile of metal plates, steel and wood, which rescue teams are still methodically searching for, in the hope – although it is late now – that they will find other survivors.
On Friday night, says Jemarion Hart, “we heard the siren (alarm) and ran to go to the security area, but it came, it rang, there was nothing we could do.”
When the tornado reached the building, the roof collapsed, trapping workers.
“It was scary, I was overwhelmed by walls, irons, wood,” the young man confesses. “The more it went on, the more the building collapsed, collapsed. At first I could move a little, then it was no longer possible, I was stuck “.
“I was just trying to control my breathing, but for others it was impossible, they were panicking. “Some fainted, others died.”
“Hope”
The young man was able to take his cell phone out of his pocket and call his girlfriend, who is pregnant, then his mother.
“It gave me hope, confidence to continue, to survive, to wait for the rescue teams,” who released him after almost seven hours of anxious waiting at 3:40 a.m., he explains.
The first rescue crews, who arrived on the scene an hour after the tornado passed, took a long time before they began to remove debris, very carefully. “The slightest wrong move would crush us,” explains Jemarion Hart.
After he was released, firefighters took him to safety. He could not feel his legs.
“Then I saw: the factory, the parking lot, the cars – everything was lost,” he says.
In addition to the bruises and pains in his legs, the young man will admit that the disaster also injured him mentally. A colleague he knew is dead. He relives his torment in his head every time the factory is mentioned.
“The images are spinning in your head. “It’s hard to handle,” he said.
He complains about the lack of safety measures by the factory management, which decided to continue production despite warnings from the authorities.
Many of the workers “are outraged” because they were called “to work that night” without “any warning”, he explains. The company may face lawsuits: “Since it did not do what it’s supposed to make employee safety a priority, it deserves it,” he said.
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