Ask any parent, and they’d tell you that they would do anything to protect their child.
Melissa Mooneyhan, 29, and Michael Mooneyhan, 28, were a married couple who lived in a mobile home in Nashville, Arkansas.
They met as teenagers who attended different high schools. The couple fell in love right away and got married in 2004, even before they finished their degrees.
However, all changed when powerful storms swept through their region.
Their home was completely destroyed and the young married couple was unable to escape death. Melissa and Michael’s bodies were buried in the horrific rubble and rescuers just found something beneath being described as a “miracle,” when rescuers finally uncovered their lifeless bodies.
Howard County Sheriff Brian McJunkins says that the victims, Melissa and her husband, Michael, lived in two adjacent mobile homes along D & J Drive in the city of Nashville. When a tornado hit their home and was wiped out by a ferocious twister in 2015, which the National Weather Service rated as an EF2, with winds greater than 125 mph.
Three trailers, including Melissa and Michael’s, were blown off their base and broken apart, with siding, insulation, and goods ending up in nearby yards and fields.
According to authorities, the Mooneyhans were killed when their trailer “exploded” and was turned over. They also determined that the Mooneyhans died from blunt force trauma and being pelted with debris from the twister. However, during those final moments, they miraculously managed to save their 18-month-old baby by shielding her from the debris!
Rescuers found the little girl squatting between her parents’ bodies, awake and teary. Apparently, their bodies absorbing the impact from the debris slung into the air by the tornado may very well be what saved their young daughter.
“I don’t think she had nearly a scratch on her,” said Sonny Raulerson, the site’s emergency management coordinator.“There wasn’t enough room for her to even stand up. But she didn’t try to crawl out. I don’t think she wanted to leave her mama.”
At the time of the accident, the toddler was believed to be just 18 months old. She made it through the violent storm fully unhurt even though the house she was in was destroyed.
The storm was the worst he had ever experienced in the Southwest Arkansas town, Howard County Sheriff Bryan McJunkins said calling the girl’s survival a “miracle.”
“It’s a miracle,” Sheriff McJunkins said. “I’ve been working for the county a little over 17 years and I’ve not seen anything like this in the city of Nashville. We’ve had some surrounding areas that have been hit. I do not remember a fatality from one.”
The young girl was taken to a nearby hospital and later released to relatives. The Mooneyhans were among the five people who were killed after a series of tornadoes struck towns in Texas and Arkansas.
“That baby was definitely their life. They considered her their greatest blessing. You couldn’t find two parents who loved a child more,” Melissa’s third cousin, Polly McCammack, told Detroit Free Press.
Family members went to the site of the destroyed home the next day looking for mementos, toys, and anything else they could salvage for the child, McCammack said.
Well, this story serves as a constant reminder that a parent’s instinct to protect their child can occasionally be as powerful as Mother Nature herself. It illustrates how far a good parent will go to ensure the safety of their child.