A Kentucky driver was killed when a pawn shop’s roof crashed on top of his car during a severe thunderstorm, according to new reports.
The roof blew off Wednesday afternoon in Prestonburg, trapping four cars — only one occupied, by a man and his fiancée — under the rubble, local station LEX 18 reported.
People ran out of area shops to help, and first responders quickly cleared the scene when they determined the severity of the situation. But Michael Coleman, 62, was already dead.
“We managed to get the windows broke,” Lt. Celina Thomas with the Prestonsburg Fire Department told the outlet. “We checked on the individual. He was obviously deceased. At that point, we secured the scene.”
His fiancée made it out unscathed.
“The man’s fiancée crawled herself out of the truck and we brought her into the office,” Sarah Lange Hyden, who works in the area, told the station. “She looked really lucky. She didn’t have a scratch on her. She was obviously devastated. I think she said they were getting married this weekend, so it was really so horrible.”
The storm was a “downburst” — a strong ground-level wind system with winds reaching a peak of 70 miles per hour, the National Weather Service said.
Nearly 800 homes lost power as a result of the storm, Mayor Les Stapleton told the outlet.
“It was a whiteout,” Stapleton told Weather.com. “That’s the best way to describe it. The rain was that thick and it was horizontal.”


