By Deon J. Hampton -
NBC News
His Friday night shift was to run as usual.
Mark Saxton showed up for work 30 minutes earlier, as he always does, greeted his friends and got down to business.
As a forklift operator at the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, he loads and unloads trucks.
Saxton, who lives in Mayfield, Kentuky, was doing just that when, a few hours that night, after a third tornado warning, he
suddenly felt that he might be in real danger.
The 37-year-old walked to an outward facing door, opened it, and
saw with his own eyes the swirling cloud heading straight for him.
He turned and walked into a secure hall that was nearby.
["We had to crawl over the dead to get to the living": looking for survivors of deadly tornadoes]
"I started to regress," said Saxton, who started working at the factory in March.
I was out of time.
Within seconds, choppy winds struck and chaos erupted.
"The tiles and the concrete started to fall," he
said.
The walls imploded.
“Everyone started running, so I threw myself to the ground.
I got into the fetal position and the concrete slab fell on top of me, ”he added.
He felt the force lift him up and then he was on the collapsed roof of the building.
All around him were coworkers asking for help, he recalled.
A couple of miles near the center of town, Saxton's wife and six children were in the same danger.
While hiding in the closet of their one-story home, the storm ripped off the roof and part of the walls.
Candle factory survivor Mark and Courtney Saxton look at their home devastated by a tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky. Deon Hampton / NBC News
His wife, Courtney Saxton, 38, passed out from a heart condition, he explained.
Neighbors managed to guarantee the safety of their family and no one died.
The scene was much bleaker in the factory.
[At least 70 people are killed in Kentucky and other central states from tornadoes]
Saxton survived the direct hit with minor cuts and scrapes.
He was only removed with scrapes on his back and one arm.
The same cannot be said for many of his co-workers, including three close friends and his cousin Robert Daniels, a corrections officer, who, according to Saxton, was supervising inmates at the city's Restricted Custody Center who were working. in the factory.
National guards block the road leading to a candle factory that was severely damaged in a devastating tornado outbreak that swept through several states in the United States, in Mayfield, Kentucky, on December 11, 2021.CHENEY ORR / REUTERS
With the city still without power on Sunday, Saxton found himself in a shelter outside the city, where he and several other family members who also lost their homes slept through the night.
Saxton reflected on his last moments with his cousin, a life taken away in the blink of an eye, literally.
[In photos: The devastation left by more than 30 tornadoes]
Before the tornado hit, they'd joked about how nice and easy their job was, compared to tougher jobs they'd had in the past.
He will never forget Daniels, he
assured.
"He was always happy and had a good spirit
," Saxton said, reflecting on why he survived when his cousin and so many other people did not.
“I really didn't think I was going to make it.
If you see the people who were next to me ... I can't believe I'm here, ”he said.
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Colette Moorman, 30, of Mayfield, prepared for the tornado as best she could.
She and her children also hid in closets.
Speaking from the shelter Sunday, Moorman said he knew the tornado was close when he felt the change in air pressure and his ears began to pop.
"We lost everything," he lamented.
Jasmine Blocker, 34, of Mayfield, did not have much damage to her home, but she still ended up staying at the shelter because she was left without power.
“I think it is going to take a lot to repair Mayfield. It's not even damaged. It has disappeared and is destroyed.
We have to rebuild, not repair, and it will cost everyone, "he said.
Rick Foley, 70, walks through his bedroom after a devastating tornado outbreak in Mayfield, Kentucky, United States, on December 12, 2021.CHENEY ORR / REUTERS