On Wednesday, April 27, as the last wave of the Three Hundred Tornado Storm shook the Chattanooga night, another tornado of sorts struck.
Not long before midnight, Timothy Rudolph, a goateed 24-year-old, was pedaling his bicycle north on Dodds Avenue when he was T-boned by a man steering his SUV in a turn. The driver fled, according to police, who also – shortly after the accident – arrested him on charges of driving while intoxicated.
His wrecked bicycle nearby, Rudolph – who had struggled with homelessness – lay under the night sky as the storms unloaded lightning, thunder and wind in the heavens above him and ambulance sirens grew closer.
As his brother rushed down from the Bronx, Rudolph was in critical condition. A few days later, as thousands of people began cleaning up from the wreckage left behind from the tornadoes, he died.
It seems it was a hard end to a very hard life.