Husband Facetiming With Wife Sees Her Last Moments Alive Before a Deadly Tornado Hits

For Christmas, Ruben Porras got his wife of 10 years Petra Ruiz a special hairstyling appointment. On Saturday, she was driving home from the salon when she used Facetime to chat with him. They talked about making dinner plans for their four young children and the usual things couples discuss about their day. That was the last time he would ever see his wife.

"All of a sudden she started screaming," a tearful Porras told CBS News. "All I said was 'Babe what's wrong?' Then the image just became black."

Petra had been caught in a deadly tornado that swept through Garland, Texas.  She was one of the 11 people who lost their lives when the tornado, with winds between 166 and 200 mph, hit the town. The storm winds flung her car off of an overpass and she died almost instantly.

Panic-stricken that night, Porras  used a find-a-phone app to pinpoint her location. He told the Dallas Morning News he drove to her location off of I-30 and found it swarming with emergency vehicles. He spotted her car among the wreckage and debris. In a gut-wrenching moment, he ran to help her, reaching inside the mangled vehicle. He told CBS "I was hoping she'd still be alive in there, you know...I crawled in to try to help her and I grabbed her hand. I grabbed her hand I said Petra wake up. Her hand was cold." 

"She wasn't responding," he told the Dallas Morning News. "She had no pulse. She was gone."

Now, Porras said he is focusing on being strong for his children. 

"I just said to them 'Mommy is not coming home,'" Porras said. "'She was in a terrible accident and she has left us. She will be watching over us.' We all just hugged each other and cried."

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