“Trapped by Their Employer: The Harrowing Tale of 11 Tennessee Workers Caught in Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Flood”
A group of factory workers was swept away when Hurricane Helene hit Erwin, Tennessee, last Friday (September 27)
Image credits: Rob Ciarapica
âI was working at impact when the storm hit yesterday and me and 11 others got trapped on the back of a semi just wanna say i’m lucky to be alive and i hope all the others i was with are okay,â Ingram wrote on Facebook.
Ingram and his group stayed on the back of a truck driven by a passerby. However, the vehicle tipped over after debris hit it.
The man, who has been working as a mold changer at the factory for eight months, survived by grabbing onto plastic pipes that were on the truck.
He and four others were swept away for half a mile (800 meters) before they could climb a sturdy pile of debris.
Two of the workers have been confirmed dead, while four others remain missing
Image credits: Rob Ciarapica
Image credits: Rob Ciarapica
The group was rescued by a Tennessee National Guard helicopter after an hour.Â
One of the clips posted on Saturday shows the helicopter flying above Ingram, while a separate video captures a rescuer putting a harness on one of the workers.
Impact Plastics stated that the company âcontinued to monitor the weather conditionsâ on Friday (September 27).
The company claims that managers let employees go home âwhen water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power.â
âWe asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasnât bad enough,â said Jacob Ingram, one of the workers who survived
