London man paralyzed by tornado, family asks for help

LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) — Shawn Cupp was overcome with emotion as she looked at the dirt patch where her home on Philpot Road in London once stood. It is also where her brother, David, nearly died in Friday’s tornado.

“It’s amazing that he made it,” Cupp said through tears. “He said he remembers it picking him up and it slinging him through the wall.”

She said David was diagnosed with spinal meningitis as a baby, which caused long-term damage to his brain.

After their mother passed, Shawn became the primary caregiver of her now 46-year-old brother.

Shawn was on her way home from work when the tornado came through, which meant that David was home alone. Fortunately, though, neighbors heard his cries for help.

“My brother was lying on his bedroom door when they found him, so they just grabbed the bedroom door and slid him out of the rubble that was down there, about 80 feet from where he started at,” she said.

David is still in the ICU, but his life will never be the same. His injuries from the storm left him paralyzed from the waist down.

“He tried to stand up, and he couldn’t, so he said he knew he was paralyzed,” Cupp said.

When David was found, Shawn told FOX 56 that their mother’s urn was lying just feet from David, almost completely intact.

“God and I believe wholeheartedly my mom was with him. There’s no other explanation as to why he’s still here,” she said.

Now, a GoFundMe account has been set up to help get them a new home. But not just that, one that’s accessible for David, and what Shawn calls their ‘new normal.’

“We just have absolutely nothing left, and they said I’m looking at a couple of months before he comes home, and I need to have him home and have everything accessible,” Cupp said. “I want to have everything to make him as comfortable as possible, to give him the best life that I can.