Two brothers sucked from their home as a tornado ripped through Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday, lived to tell the tale. Roger Slatten says he got home just 60 seconds before the cyclone blew out the windows of the house he shares with his wife and brother in Omaha's Elkhorn neighborhood. With his wife at work, Roger and brother Royce were searching for one of their two dogs so they could shelter together in the basement when they felt an upper floor jolt. As the brothers locked eyes, Roger says he felt "certain" it would be the last time he ever saw Royce. "We could feel the floor separate from the foundation," Roger tells CNN. "As soon as the wind got under it, it just vaporized the upper end of the house."
Roger recalls doing "head-over-heels cartwheels" as he was thrown in the air and smashed with debris. "I face-planted on the ground and got buried in rubble, which luckily protected me from getting sliced up by any glass, but my legs and one arm were pinned," he says. Royce recalls "hitting the ground and coming to afterwards and just feeling like the whole house is ripping into my back." "It was the most intense feeling I've ever had in my life," he tells CNN. Able to stand, "I started screaming Roger's name because I didn't see anybody," he adds. "I thought he was dead for sure."
Royce walked barefoot to a neighbor's house, while Roger managed to call 911 with his free hand, per CNN. The brothers, who pulled up their shirts to show angry red marks across their backs, reunited a short time later. Royce required 22 stitches. Roger suffered multiple bone bruises. But they're still standing, which is more than they can say for their house. Only the basement foundation remains, per CNN. Still, "it could have been so much worse," says Roger, noting the whole family, including the two dogs, survived. Authorities say four people in Oklahoma, including a 4-month-old baby in Holdenville, and one person in Iowa died in regional storms over the weekend, ABC News reports. (More tornado stories.)
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