'Let me live': Couple battered and bruised, but alive after NC tornado rips roof off their home

DORTCHES, N.C. — A Navy veteran, his wife and their dog, Sabot, are battered and bruised, but alive.

Michael Poythress and Debbie Moore took refuge Wednesday in the bathtub of their Puckett Mobile Home Park in Dortches.

The EF3 tornado sent the three of them flying.

On Friday, the couple was released from the hospital.

Poythress and Moore’s roof came off Wednesday, the tornado blew them away, and they were buried under remnants of the home they spent their lives working on.

“I looked over to the west; it was already on the field next to the house,” Poythress said.

The three then ran to the bathroom to take cover.

“She got in bathroom next to the tub, started climbing in to it,” Poythress said. “I had my shoulder against the door, [I held] onto the dog with my left arm and (was) holding her shirttail with the other.”

“I didn’t know what to think. I was praying to the lord, ‘let me live,’” Moore said.

The couple said while in the bathroom, the roof blew off, and they tumbled and rolled around in the rumble.

“She fell out of the tub, if I hadn’t held onto her, she would’ve been gone,” Poythress said. “She would have been in the tub.”

Thankfully, help wasn’t too far away when the storm passed.

“Luckily, an EMS just happened to be passing by,” Poythress said.

EMS got Moore, who is already under hospice care, quickly onto a stretcher. The tornado left her with bumps, bruises and abrasions all over her body.

“I [have] a big lump on my head. They said they [have] it covered up,” Moore said. “My skin is [really] thin.

“It just peeled the skin off my leg. You can see almost through the bone.”

The couple is staying with relatives after the tornado.

They do not have insurance on their home.