Sydney Moore had just put her two young sons down for an afternoon nap when a deadly tornado tore through her hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee, over the weekend.
Moore, 22, said she and her fiance Aramis Youngblood were standing in the living room of their mobile home when they heard a huge sound that she described as like an airplane flying directly over them.
Moore said she and Youngblood went into "fight or flight mode" to save their sons Lord, 4 months, who was sleeping in a bassinet near the front of the home, and Princeton, 1, who was asleep in a bedroom in the back of the home.
"As soon as I jumped on top of Princeton, the back bedroom, the walls collapsed," Moore told "Good Morning America," adding, "I remember me and Princeton got thrown onto the ground and then we got picked up and thrown down again, but he never left my arms. And somehow, someway, I still had his pacifier clenched in my hands."
While Moore protected her eldest son, she said Youngblood ran to the front of the house to grab Lord. As the tornado passed through, both of them were swept away, according to Moore.
"In the front bedroom, Aramis was in there with Lord, and the roof came off and swept them up," she said. "The bassinet was the first thing to go."
When the tornado passed, Moore said she and Youngblood were able to call out and hear each other, but they couldn't see each other and couldn't find Lord.
"I remember the first question I asked [Youngblood] was, 'Where's my baby?'" she said. "And he said he didn't know."
As Moore worked to free herself and Princeton from the debris, Youngblood, who was injured when he was thrown by the tornado, searched for their youngest son.
After a 10-minute search, Youngblood found Lord nestled safely in a tree, around 25 feet away, according to Moore.
"It was just like he was placed in a tree, like a little tree cradle for a baby," Moore said. "It was like a cubby hole in a tree, at the bottom."
Moore said she felt like she was watching a movie when she saw Youngblood carrying Lord back to her through the devastation from the tornado, which killed three people and injured nearly two dozen others, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
"I saw him walking through the woods, carrying Lord in the pouring down rain, and all of his clothes were ripped," Moore said of Youngblood. "It was like a scene in a movie."
