New Hampshire couple survives after tree crushes home during nor'easter
EAST KINGSTON, NH - An East Kingston, New Hampshire couple is being called a miracle after surviving a roof collapse during the April nor'easter. "I heard the branch crack, and it was right above our heads," said Dave Scaggell.
It was the sound before the explosion of a 70-foot-long pine tree branch crashing on the roof of the trailer home he shares with his partner Jennie Wadleigh. "I put my arms and my legs up and the roof came down and met me laying in bed," said Scaggell.
There are welts on his arms where Scaggell tried to block the impact of the falling roof as the couple was still sleeping Thursday morning during the storm. The impact destroyed the trailer sparing only the front kitchen.
"It was so scary, I wasn't sure we were going to make it," said Wadleigh. "I couldn't see the door and I started freaking out," said Scaggell.
The question for them was how to get out and make their way to the only small opening they could see. "I'm pushing on the wall a little bit to make sure we get through it, but we didn't know if it was done. Heart pounding a hundred miles an hour," said Scaggell.
Fire chief calls their survival a "miracle"
Fire Chief Ed Warren calls their survival phenomenal. "I can't overstate the miracle that happened here. There's no way they should have come out of that alive let alone unhurt," said Chief Warren.
The chief estimates several thousand pounds of debris came raining down on the couple and was worried when he arrived it would be a recovery and not a rescue. "It was a huge sense of relief knowing I wasn't calling for a trauma team or worse," Warren said.
Firefighters collecting donations
The trauma is still with Dave Scaggell and Jennie Wadleigh as they lost everything except their cat Molly, they were able to locate.
Now the chief is making the fire house a donation center for them as they need everything from clothing to gift cards. But the couple is assessing what they do have. "We're alive, we made it out," said Scaggell as their determination, he says, overcame their fear.