CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Orlando Ledesma and his wife, Alicia Planas, were in the middle of making lunch Saturday afternoon when the power went out in their mobile home off of Bates Lane. Then Ledesma heard what he described as a train getting louder and louder, which prompted him to look out the back door window.
He saw his trash cans swiftly roll across his yard. Then he saw his neighbor’s trailer torn into pieces in a matter of seconds.
“I turned around and ran to the bathroom, which is probably 3 feet away from the back door,” Ledesma said. “I just made it into the bathroom when our trailer gets lifted (into the air), and I go face-first into the floor as I tried to brace myself.”
Planas, who was also in the bathroom, was thrown against the wall so hard it knocked her unconscious. The two continued to get thrown around inside the trailer until ending up outside, covered in rubble.
Ledesma said when he looked up, Planas was unresponsive, and their trailer was stuck in a tree before falling back down.
“I was free enough to move around whatever I was under,” Ledesma said. “That’s when I began reaching for her and telling her to wake up. … I was thinking she was dead.
“Our trailer got thrown into a tree about 50 yards from where the foundation was … that tree saved our lives because the other four trailers that were around us, totally gone, nowhere to be found.”
Planas was transported to Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville before being transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with critical injuries. She had three broken ribs, three slipped disks, two broken collarbones and a broken pinky. She also suffered from hypothermia.
Ledesma told Clarksville Now that Planas had back surgery two days ago, and she was undergoing a procedure on her pinky Wednesday. Meanwhile, Ledesma has suffered from a dislocated shoulder and walking pneumonia.
‘Two years later, we’re in the middle of another tornado’
For Heather Merydith and her son Brantlee Smith, Saturday’s tornado marked the second the two had lived through over the past two years.
Merydith told Clarksville Now her family survived the Mayfield, Kentucky, tornado on Dec. 10, 2021, a disaster that destroyed 257 homes and damaged another 1,000, according to FEMA.
“I moved back to Tennessee to be near my family and almost exactly two years later, we’re in the middle of yet another tornado,” Merydith said. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but it’s absolutely insane.”
Her family is located off Norris Drive and after the storm passed, they helped clear trees and power lines to allow first responders and the police to get to those in need of help.
As they were workig, a woman ran up to Merydith with a baby that seemed to be critically injured. Merydith led the woman and her baby to first responders, and she later saw a Facebook post that said the child was going to be all right.
Merydith and her family continued to assist those in need in the late evening around the areas of Eva Drive and Evans Road.
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