A couple in South Carolina killed by a tree falling on their bedroom during Hurricane Helene was found hugging each other, according to their grandson.
Marcia, 74, and Jerry Savage, 78, were lying in bed at their house in Beech Island when the tree crashed down on their bedroom, their grandson John Savage told the Associated Press. “All you could see was ceiling and tree,” the 22-year-old, who was in the property at the time, said. “I was just going through sheer panic at that point.”
Savage told the news agency that his grandparents were found hugging each other in the bed. He said his family believe God intended for them to be taken together rather than allowing one of them to live without the other.
“When they pulled them out of there, my grandpa apparently heard the tree snap beforehand and rolled over to try and protect my grandmother,” he said.
The couple had been married for more than 50 years and had been teenage sweethearts. “They loved each other to their dying day,” Savage said.
Announcements from the Facebook page of the Second Baptist Church of Beech Island indicate Jerry and Marcia Savage died last weekend and that their funeral service will take place Saturday. Users replying to the posts said they were “heartbroken” and “devastated” and remembered the pair as “such a sweet couple.”
A GoFundMe set up to help pay for the funeral costs noted they were “taken too soon” during the hurricane. “Jerry and Marcia were two of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever known,” the page’s creator, Brittany Estep, wrote. She said they were her husband’s grandparents, and that they are survived by two children, four grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
More than 180 people died as the storm raged across the Southeast, bringing powerful winds and catastrophic flooding to the Carolinas and other states. President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved deploying 1,000 active-duty soldiers to support relief efforts in communities devastated by the hurricane.
