LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Laurel County man is in the ICU at UK Hospital after Friday night's tornado tore through his neighborhood.
"Every morning is a new challenge to wake up, and to realize this is real and not a nightmare," said Shawn Cupp, whose younger brother David Krell was critically injured when the trailer hit their mobile home.
Shawn told LEX 18 she's always been a protective older sister, but this is something she never imagined they'd face.
Now, a GoFundMe has been set up to help the family recover.
Shawn and other family members have been staying at a Lexington hotel while David is being treated. He has intellectual disabilities and moved in with his sister a few years ago after their mother died.
Friday night, he was at home when Philpot Road was essentially wiped out. Shawn was trying to get home from work at the time.
"[David] heard a freight train, and he says he knew when he heard the train, that it was done," she told LEX 18. "And he said it picked him up, slammed him into the wall, and when he hit the wall he blacked out for a few minutes."
Thankfully, neighbors found him. But his injuries are extensive.
"At this point he's paralyzed from the waist down," Shawn said. "He has multiple compression fractures in his back. He has a crushed artery in his neck."
She said David will eventually be moved to a rehab facility, but their family's need for support will not be over.
"We need prayers," she said. "The whole of Laurel County. There's a lot of people that lost people and we were actually one of the lucky ones."
Lucky, her brother is still here, along with her daughters and grandchildren.
Shawn says it's just another miracle she's experienced since Friday.
"We had the ashes from my mother in the trailer, and we found it intact," she said. "It had one little chip in it, and it was feet away from my brother. So that was just another miracle in itself. I felt like maybe she was with him."
