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Tornado Flips Trailer in North Texas Injuring Man

Seconds later they got a tornado warning on their cellphones and a phone call from their hysterical 17-year-old daughter that she was trapped inside her trailer, just yards away from the main house, and that it was shaking and she couldn't get out.

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(TNS) - Amber and Shawn Zeleny were joking in their home near Egan on Monday evening about the weather outside and how the wind was scaring their dogs. Shawn turned to his wife and said the dogs looked like they were going to sleep with her that night.

Seconds later they got a tornado warning on their cellphones and a phone call from their hysterical 17-year-old daughter that she was trapped inside her trailer, just yards away from the main house, and that it was shaking and she couldn't get out.

"It was either Shawn was getting her or I was getting her," Amber Zeleny told the Star-Telegram on Tuesday morning. "It was either going to be me in the hospital, or him in the hospital. One way or another, she was getting out of that trailer. If she would have stayed in that trailer, she wouldn't have lived."

Shawn ran outside and saw that a pair of stairs leading up to the trailer was jammed against the door. Seconds after he pulled the stairs free and got the teen out of the trailer, Amber saw the trailer fly across her yard. Her daughter, Brittaney Deaton, ran into the home and screamed to call 911.

The trailer had rolled over Shawn, and he was caught under debris. He lay under metal and wood for nearly two hours as rain continued to pour. The family tried to cover him in a blue tarp to protect him from the rain.

"He was soaking wet, soaking wet," Amber said. "We went to pull (the tarp) over him to keep the rain from getting on him and he thought we were pulling it over him like he was dead. He (told us,) 'My heart completely dropped.'"

Medical services were unable to get to their home located off FM- 917. Fallen telephone poles leading up to their house trapped the family's residence at the end of the dirt road.

"I was terrified, totally terrified because I don't want to lose my husband," Amber said. "It's my daughter's senior year in high school. She just lost her grandma. I can't lose anybody else."

Amber was back at her home Tuesday morning for a few moments while her husband of five years remains at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. She said she came home because she knew he was about to be in pain and couldn't stay to watch.

"His mustache was totally covered in blood and dirt, and he's got dirt all over his body and they're going to have to scrub all of that off," Amber said. "He's in so much pain."

Part of Shawn's left hip is shattered. His right hip is fractured, all of his ribs are broken and doctors had to reattach his ear, Amber said. It's expected that he won't be able to walk for several months. And although her husband is alive, Amber said she still remains fearful for his condition.

"He's got a heart condition on top of everything," Amber said as a tear fell from her eye. "He's still at risk, major risk, with his heart condition. I don't know how he's going to go through surgery. I don't know anything."

Amber, a Texas native, said the family had lived at their Johnson County residence for about five years. Her husband loves tornadoes, but she never thought there would be a day they'd be so hands-on with one.

"He loves to watch them things and everything else, but that was not meaning that he needed to be in one," Amber said.

Weather service counts tornadoes

After severe storms swept across North Texas on Monday night, the National Weather Service plans to survey potential tornado damage near Egan, Joshua and other parts of Johnson County; Celina and Blue Ridge in Collin County; Midlothian in Ellis County; Kemp in Kaufman County; and Mabank in Van Zandt County.

Johnson County Emergency Management Director Jamie Moore told the Star-Telegram Tuesday that officials were still assessing the extent of the damage. He said Shawn Zeleny was the only person reported to be injured.

The damage "stretches for over 15 miles," from the east side of the city of Joshua through the Ellis County line, Moore said.

"Some of it is vegetative damage. We know that we had a lot of roads close for downed trees, and we know that cleanup will be ongoing for many days to come," Moore said. "We also know that we had structural damage because we got reports from individuals who are missing roofs."

The county was working on setting up a shelter in Alvarado, although no one has directly requested assistance. "That's our priority," Moore said, adding that his team is in contact with resources like the Red Cross.

Chaos broke out for the Zeleny family after the Johnson County tornado, which was confirmed by radar, according to the National Weather Service. On top of the totaled trailer and her injured husband, Amber's horse and donkey got free from a destroyed fence and she lost her chickens. Her home lost a window and parts of the residence are indented inward. A shed was totaled.

"(Brittaney) made a memorial shadowbox for her grandma. I hope it's still in (the trailer,)" Amber said. "I don't know. You can't replace that. It had flowers from her funeral. I just have to start digging."

Brittaney is experiencing some soreness but wasn't seriously injured. She plans to go to the University of Texas at Arlington in the fall. She wants to be a nurse.

As for the cleanup process, Amber was dumbfounded about where to start.

"I'm going to have to pull in and ask for every friend and family I can find," Amber said.

Stephen Barnes lives right next door to the Zelenys. A metal wall from an industrial manufacturer a good hundred yards away flew across a field and landed on the side of his home on a carport, totaling a brand new truck he had just bought a few weeks ago.

"Me and my wife were inside the house," Barnes said. "We were watching the storms but they didn't say anything tornadic and then all of the sudden our phones went off saying 'tornado,' and we were going to run to my mom-in-law's house but there wasn't any time. I seen the trees blowing."

He said he and his wife only had 15 seconds to run to a closet and take cover.

"As soon as that alarm went off, it hit," Barnes said. "It hailed for like two or three seconds. I heard it hit the roof. Then the sirens went off and I could see the trees blowing down."

Barnes and his wife hid for about five minutes, he said.

"It felt like the house was going to implode," Barnes said.

Firefighters take cover from tornado

Lightning during the storm also is believed to have sparked a large fire at a pallet storage facility near Alvarado.

Alvarado Fire Captain Brad Hargrove told KXAS-TV that fire crews had to take cover from the tornado as they battled the blaze in the 2400 block of Luisa Lane, but no one was hurt.

"We look up and it's coming right over the top of us," Hargrove told KXAS. "We did see it. The debris field was hitting our apparatus, and I made the command to make sure all of our staff retreated into their apparatus and we rode it out on the scene."

The fire, fueled by the wooden pallets, may contain to burn with hot spots for several days but wasn't threatening other structures, firefighters told the NBC station.

This story was originally published April 5, 2022 12:20 PM.

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