“I’m looking at this twister coming, this car gets sucked up. I see the debris, and then all of a sudden our truck got hit,” Jeff Frederickson said.
COLLEYVILLE, Texas — Jeff and Sasha Frederickson are grateful to be alive after an EF-4 tornado in Marietta, Oklahoma trapped them on April 27th.
“We’re amazed we’re still here,” Sasha said.
The Colleyville married couple was headed back to Texas on I-35 from a trip to pick up an old family classic car. As they drove through Marietta and towed a 1961 Ford Thunderbird, vehicles around them came to a stop.
“I saw a cyclone,” Jeff said. “I’m looking at this twister coming, and as I’m watching it, this car gets sucked up. I see the debris, and then all of a sudden our truck got hit.”
Jeff’s red pickup truck was hit by debris. The couple managed to get out of the truck and ran to a nearby ditch.
“I got hit in the back of the head, and then I remember waking up in the ditch,” Jeff said. “I could see her running and yelling my name. I don’t have a feeling I can describe to see my wife alive. The first thing I said was ‘Thank you, Jesus.'”
Sasha was uninjured, but Jeff spent 10 days in the hospital, including 4 days in the intensive care unit (ICU). He suffered 13 broken ribs (including six shattered ribs), 16 staples on his head, a broken shoulder, and a broken chest bone.
Jeff’s recovery will take several weeks, and his friends have launched a GoFundMe to help them financially until he returns to his job selling RVs.
“The fact that nothing shattered an artery, that’s the miracle,” Jeff said. “The doctor said, ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’ I said, it’s not luck, it’s God.’”
He said he thanked God for their survival and the fact that his wife was uninjured.
“The hardest part is the thought that I could’ve lost my wife,” Jeff said.
Jeff returned home from the hospital on Monday. On Tuesday, he walked out to his back shed to survey the damage to the family’s old classic car.
“This thing’s totaled,” Jeff said. “But at the end of the day, I’m lucky to be alive.”