Woman dies protecting child as storm rolls mobile home, Indiana officials say
A 73-year-old woman in Indiana is dead after a severe storm tearing across the Midwest caused a mobile home to roll Monday night, officials say. She was found clutching a child.
Emergency crews responded to a mobile home in Fort Wayne around 7:45 p.m. following reports that people were trapped inside a trailer that had rolled over due to high winds, WANE reported.
The home was severely damaged when crews arrived and firefighters had to contend with a gas leak and exposed power lines before they were able to safely attempt reaching the people inside, according to the outlet.
Once in the mobile home, firefighters found the woman, identified as Isabel E. Atencio, under debris holding on to a 5-year-old boy that they believe to be her grandson, the Associated Press reported. The woman died at a hospital but the boy was not injured, according to the outlet. An autopsy determined Atencio died of blunt force injuries, WANE reported.
The toppled mobile home was resting on its roof and Adam O’Connor, deputy chief of the Fort Wayne Fire Department, said it took officials 14 minutes to remove the woman and lift her through the door, the AP reported.
“They had to stabilize the trailer, crawl inside the trailer, find the two victims and bring them out,” O’Connor told the outlet. “It’s awful. I was thinking about that all last night.”
When the mobile home rolled, it struck another trailer with one person inside, WANE reported. He climbed out a window and escaped without injury, according to the outlet.
A derecho — a long-lasting and widespread storm — swept across a large portion of the Midwest on Monday, causing widespread damage and leaving 1 million people across several states without power, The Weather Channel reported.
Photos and videos show wood boards impaling a home, crumpled grain bins, overturned semi-trailer trucks and snapped trees, McClatchy News previously reported.
In 14 hours, the storm traveled from southeastern South Dakota to Ohio, bringing heavy rain and straight-line winds to states including Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska and Wisconsin, according to The Weather Channel.
