Family members believe Dianne Thrasher’s life was saved by a phone call from her sister.

After forecasters predicted severe weather for early Wednesday morning, June Reed and her husband, Ted, took turns watching the news and tracking the storm.

Meanwhile, Ocie Thrasher was working his shift of 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. at International Paper Co. He also tracked the weather.

“I’d been monitoring the storm all night at work, but I didn’t want to call and wake her,” he said about Dianne, his wife of 43 years. “I was hoping she would sleep through it like usual.”

Just before 3 a.m., the Reeds learned a tornado was heading to Wren, which is near Pinhook, where the Thrashers lived. That is when June phoned Dianne.

Dianne put on her favorite housecoat and slippers, grabbed her purse, a flashlight and a cell phone, and headed to the bathtub.

“She almost got in the bathtub,” said Wendy McDowell, daughter of Dianne and Ocie. “For some reason, she decided to get in the closet instead. She got in the closet two minutes before it (the tornado) hit.”

The tornado ripped that bathtub from the house and tossed it beside the family’s swimming pool.

The Thrasher house was the first one directly hit by the tornado that touched down at 3:15 a.m., killing four people and destroying dozens of houses.

Afterward, Coy Thrasher, Ocie’s brother, searched in the dark for Ocie’s house, which he normally could see from his backyard. It was a pile of bricks and rubble.

Dianne Thrasher, still holding her flashlight, waited inside the debris.

“He (Coy) called and asked if I had talked to Dianne, and I said no. He said he was going down there to try to find her,” Ocie said. “He told me, ‘Come home, come home now,’ and I told my friends at work I had to go.”

While the Thrasher brothers talked, June tried to phone her sister a second time.

“She heard the phone ringing,” said Dianne’s daughter-in-law Amy Thrasher. “She couldn’t answer it, though, because the storm knocked it from her hand and she couldn’t move.”

The Reeds headed to Dianne and Ocie’s house at 1885 Lawrence County 92, as did Ocie, his and Dianne’s son Brad, and her brother-in-law Coy.

In pouring rain, while the others looked for a route not blocked by trees, Coy searched through the debris with other rescuers.

“They knew she was there ’cause they heard her,” McDowell said. “She kept saying, ‘I’m here, I’m here.’ And when they stepped on her, she said, ‘You just stepped on my foot.’ ”

The rescue workers could see the beam of her flashlight.

“She kept turning the flashlight button on and off to help them locate her ... Her thumb was the only thing she could move,” said McDowell.

On Friday, the family looked through the debris on the foundation. The walls and roof had been demolished. They pondered how Dianne survived.

When the tornado hit, the chimney fell onto the house and the closet where she had sought shelter, explained Kerry McDowell, her son-in-law.

“The subfloor gave way underneath the closet,” he said. “That is the only place in the entire house where the subfloor broke.”

Rescuers found Dianne pinned in the indention where the subfloor caved in.

“If she had been anywhere else, I don’t know what would have happened,” McDowell said.

Wendy McDowell described her mother’s survival as “a miracle.”

“It was a great relief to see her,” she said.

“Yes, a great relief,” echoed Ocie.

Dianne suffered four broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a punctured lung. Lawrence County Medical Center’s intensive care unit treated her Wednesday and Thursday, then transferred her Friday to Huntsville Hospital.

Two days after the disaster, dozens of volunteers mended fences, sorted the rubble and searched for salvageable items. Family, friends, church groups and co-workers brought tools to help the couple, who had helped others.

“I’m not surprised at the turnout because they (Ocie and Dianne) are the ones that usually do this,” Amy Thrasher said.

“This is a commentary on what type of people they are,” added Kerry McDowell.

But Ocie disagreed.

‘Overwhelming’

“It’s overwhelming ... I didn’t know I had so many friends,” he said. “I don’t have any ... way to say ‘thank you,’ I don’t know if there’s any way to tell them the appreciation I feel.”

He is confident that he and his wife will rebuild. He just doesn’t know where.

“Whether we rebuild here will be up to her. I’ll go with her wishes,” he said, glancing at crumbled bricks and snapped trees.

The Thrasher family will cherish two events this month.

On Wednesday, Dianne, a retired General Electric forklift operator, will celebrate her 62nd birthday. And, as planned, 62-year-old Ocie will retire from International Paper on Feb. 28.

“I wanted to retire early so we could spend many good years together,” he said as his eyes glazed with tears, “... and we’re going to be able to do that still.”