Gene Willers, Pilger Bank President, Saves His Staff by Locking Them Inside Vault During Tornadoes

What a difference from people like the leaders of big businesses who are willing to kill people with their products in order to make ever more money.

These killers include
Those who hide the fact that their products kill people, including drug and car companies.
Those at drug companies that hide the fact that their products don't work.
Those at fossil fuel companies that fund global warming denialism.

http://www.wunderground.com/news/gene-willers-bank-president-saves-staff-vault-pilger-tornadoes-20140618

By: By Allie Goolrick
Published: June 19, 2014

When an EF4 tornado ripped through the tiny Midwestern town of Pilger, Nebraska, on Monday, probably one of the safest places to ride out the storm was Nebraska Midwest Bank on Main Street.

That’s where branch president Gene Willers and his staff of eight were frantically closing out cash as tornado sirens screamed outside, alerting them that a twister was headed their way, ABC 9 News reports.

Willers knew that he and his employees could probably shelter safely in the bank’s concrete and steel vault. But there was one problem. The bank vault can only be locked from the outside.

"It had to be locked," Willers told ABC 9, "Otherwise the tornado would suck the door open."

That meant one person was going to have to stay behind to secure eight other lives.

The de facto father figure to a close-knit staff, Willers knew exactly what he had to do.

As one of the massive twisters carved a direct path towards the bank, Willers ushered his employees into the secure vault, then locked himself outside of it. Then he went down to the cellar and prepared to die.

"It was just deathly quiet, you could hear the sirens going off," Willers told 92.7 FM. “It was just pitch black, and I was by myself just preparing for the worst. I've said to others that I didn't plan on coming out."

Willers was lucky. An EF4 tornado sheered off an entire wall of the bank, crumbling bricks onto Main Street and exposing the bank's two-story interior like a child's dollhouse. But he and his employees made it out unscathed.

For Willers, the decision to risk his own life to save his employees was an easy one.

"We're like a family and I'm the president and I take care of my family. That's all there is to it," said Willers.