Gabriel Sergeant says tornado collapsed his home; neighbors pried open window to rescue family

Gabriel Sergeant, a resident who identified himself at the start of the interview, said a tornado struck his home while he, his 6-year-old child and his partner were inside. "We were just having a night like any other," Sergeant said, adding that they received a tornado warning and went to the bathtub with shoes, flashlights and pillows before the structure collapsed.

Sergeant described hearing "loud noises" about 10 minutes after sheltering and said "the whole house just everything collapsed in on us. Insulation everywhere, all the furniture just destroyed. I mean, ceiling crumbled right on top of us, man." He said power went out during the event.

He credited nearby neighbors with rescuing the family, saying they hollered from a window, pried it open with a knife and helped pull Sergeant, his son and his girlfriend out of the damaged house. "They let us shelter in their basement and stuff. It was a real blessing," he said.

Sergeant said the family had prepared because an earlier warning had prompted them to gather supplies. "We already like had gathered all the stuff we needed, the shoes, everything and stuff," he said, describing how they sat in the bathtub and "waited to see what would happen." He warned of how close they came to a worse outcome: "That was the living room. That was it ... We would be dead, certainly. The bathroom wasn't even directly crushed and it had collapsed, too. Like if we would be a corpse right now. I mean, it's bad."

The transcript does not provide a location, date or information about any injuries or the current condition of the family beyond their sheltering in a neighbor's basement. No official sources, emergency responders or local authorities are quoted in the provided transcript.