“I never lost consciousness, and I hollered for my little dog, and he didn’t answer, he didn’t come, so I know he’s in here somewhere,” says Barbara Garcia of Moore, OK, gesturing to the rubble around her.
It's a scene of utter devastation, and Garcia is describing how she survived the tornado to a reporter from CBS News. Her voice trails off, her eyes darting around, looking at what's left of her house, her neighborhood. She pushes the thoughts of her dog aside for the moment and gets back to the interview, telling of the horror that flattened everything around her.
And then a quiet, shocked voice from someone from CBS off-camera, interrupting the newscast.
"The dog. The dog."
The camera turns, lowers, and there, right at Garcia's feet: two eyes peeking out of the rubble. Her little dog, buried, right next to her. At the sound of his owner's voice calling his name, the dog starts moving, wiggling, trying to get free.
Garcia herself pulls the rubble off of her dog, who crawls out of the wreckage under his own power. He seems stunned, shell-shocked, but he's able to move on his own. It's an amazing scene, and Garcia, overcome, delivers a heartbreaking coda.
"I thought God just answered one prayer, to let me be okay. He answered both of them. Because this was my second prayer."
Watch the video here.
