Volunteer firefighters Bryan Guffey and Derek Collins don’t like to talk about Wednesday night.
“It was hell,” 20-year-old Collins said, quietly and unequivocally. He doesn’t say anything more for a long time. His suntanned, young face and blue eyes show the pain.
On April 27, an EF4 tornado ripped up 33 miles of DeKalb County, tossing splintered homes and people in the vortex of 175-mph winds. Of the 34 people who died in the county, nine were from Sylvania.
Guffey, Collins and 15 other volunteer firefighters from the Sylvania Volunteer Fire Department were among the first to respond to calls for help seconds after the storm hit. Some were already at the firehouse; others raced from their nearby homes in response to calls of trapped and dying victims.
For more than eight hours they worked, freeing people from homes, wrapping the injured in blankets and holding the hands of the dying. They have no idea how many roads they cleared for rescue vehicles or how many people they rescued.