"I think they were together and trying to protect the child," a friend of the mother said
A couple living in Nashville, Arkansas, died after a tornado ripped though their home on Sunday night. However, neighbors who rushed help the husband and wife say they found them huddled around their 1-year-old daughter, who survived the incident unharmed.
The storm hit the mobile home where Melissa Mooneyhan, 29, and her husband Michael, 28, lived at about 11:20 p.m. on Sunday night. In an interview with KTHV News, Linda Purtell, a friend of Melissa Mooneyhan’s, said she felt the couple had died heroically.
“I think they were together and trying to protect the child,” Purtell said.
Howard County Coroner Howard Gray told KSLA News that the tornado flipped over the Mooneyhans’ trailer and “exploded” it.
“That poor little girl is never going to know them,” Gray said. “But she’s young enough that she’ll never remember what happened.”
This article originally appeared on People.