Kentucky tornado: MMA fighter rescues wife and sister-in-law from crushed candle factory

‘​​It was like the worst war movie you see on TV,’ Brian Brooks said of the wreckage. ‘The people were screaming and you could not see in the dark’

A mixed martial arts fighter in Kentucky is being hailed as a hero after rescuing his wife and sister-in-law from last weekend’s deadly tornadoes.

Brian Brooks says he was sheltering at home with his daughters as one of the twisters ripped through his town in Mayfield, Kentucky. Then he got a phone call.

“It’s my wife,” Mr Brooks told Fox News. “She calls and tells me she loves me, that she’s trapped, and they’re smashed. And she hung up.”

Several tornadoes devastated Kentucky and four other states on Friday and Saturday, killing at least 88 people. Eight of those deaths were at a candle factory owned by Mayfield Consumer Products – where Mr Brooks’ wife worked.

The 14-year MMA fighter “flew” to the factory, he said, but when he got there it was already a pile of rubble.

“​​It was like the worst war movie you see on TV,” Mr Brooks told Fox News. “The people were screaming and you could not see in the dark.”

Remembering that his wife was in the women’s bathroom when she called, Mr Brooks searched through the debris, helping others along the way.

“I just started climbing and finding people, just helping everybody I could,” he said.

From beneath the rubble, Mr Brooks’ sister-in-law recognised him by his shoes, and started shouting his name. As the MMA fighter later explained to Fox News, he has a penchant for footwear with “crazy” colours – which may have saved his family’s lives.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ and started trying to pull,” Mr Brooks recalled – but in his way was debris from the roof, barrels of candle wax, and parts of the crushed bathroom. “Everything was on top of them.”

Luckily, some helpful police on the scene handed Mr Brooks a crowbar, and he was able to dig them out.

Later, Mr Brooks called it “a miracle” that he was able to find the two women.

“I’m so grateful,” he told Fox News. “I just want to say my prayers for everybody who wasn’t so lucky.”

At least eight workers were killed at the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, which was completely levelled by the storms. Four employees have said they were told they’d be fired if they left work early, even as the tornadoes approached and warning sirens began to ring out.

A spokesperson for the company told NBC the claims were “absolutely untrue.”

Governor Andy Beshear has said Kentucky’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration will investigate what happened.