ugh! how is my account overdrawn? announcer: when it comes to financial stability, don t get left behind. get tools and tips for saving at feedthepig.org. what split second decisions would you make if a twister was headed your way? ladonna cobb was caught in the twister that hit oklahoma in late may. you re talking about storms that had already injured or killed 855 people in the previous 40 years. now even though 25 people died in the moore, oklahoma storm, this teacher s assistant may have saved lives with a risky decision. okay, so tell me what i m looking at right here. this is the beginning of the new briarwood. this is where you used to teach? correct, this is where the
a good sign for the future, says ladonna cobb. would you do anything different that day? you know, i wouldn t. i don t feel like i m extraordinary. i feel like i did what anybody else would have done in my situation. when we come back when the second boom went off, i went like this. i did the cross and i just said, god protect me. and i went on there. the story behind the man they call cowboy.
daughters in shock after the funnel hit. ladonna was trying to learn the extent of the injuries. i broke my cheek bone, this side of my face is still numb. i had a gash in my head, i had 16 staples. oh, that probably scared the kids too, didn t it? my middle daughter was screaming, somebody help my mom, my mom s going to die. i just kept saying i m hurt, baby, but i m alive. i ll be okay. i m here. amazingly, nobody died at briarwood elementary. but just a mile away at plaza towers elementary, seven children did die. i can t even imagine the amount that plaza towers lost. and how hard that is for them. today, both schools are being built with fema-approved safe areas. now it s hope, i think, hope of what s to come.
old briarwood was. this is where you were during the storm? this is where we were may 20th. on may 20th, ladonna cobb, an assistant in briar wowood elementary s pre-k, risked her life to save students, all while the tornado was tearing up her building. all of us were saying lord, please, please protect us, let us be okay. tornado warning until 4:30. most tornadoes hit this area in the evening. moving toward moore. but this time the forecasters at the national weather service predicted that the storm will blow through earlier in the day. in other words, when the classes were still in session. 35 right now, in moore. what was different about this one? whenever we turned on the radio and we were listening, you can hear it in their voice. they were saying, you know, this
what happened? my husband, who was right next to me, looked over, he could see the back of my legs, he could hear me screaming it is crushing me, it is crushing me. i was like i got to get the wall off my wife. i just remember grabbing it as hard as i could to get it off my wife. because i was like she is going to die if i don t get that off of her. my daughter was one of the kids underneath me, my youngest, she was just screaming, mom, mom, mom, wake up! i could see her. she seemed translucent to me. i kind of thought i was dead. you can imagine outside how parents and teachers and the students who were able to pick their way out of the rubble were traumatized. she s out? she s out? okay. a local photographer took this picture of steve and ladonna and two of their