A Navy vet is among the six victims who lost their lives after a tornado ravaged an Amazon warehouse in Illinois.
29-year-old Clayton Cope was a maintenance worker at the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, who died trying to warn his colleagues about the imminent danger when a tornado battered the site and ripped off the roof of the warehouse.
It has since come to light that Cope was a kind and generous man who loved fishing and riding his Harley. He enlisted in the Navy back in 2010 and served most of his six years in service as an Aviation Electronics Technician.
Following the young man’s tragic death, Cope’s heartbroken mother, Carla, recalled the terrifying moment she last talked to her son and urged him to take shelter.
“He just said he needed to tell someone that [the tornado] was coming. He had a big heart and he was a very sweet man,” she told The Daily Beast.
Meanwhile, the Navy vet’s sister, Rachel Cope, blasted Amazon for allegedly not taking the first emergency siren seriously and not allowing its employees to seek shelter.
“I’d want people to know that he died saving the lives of people in that building because of Amazon’s negligence to take the tornado sirens seriously and choosing the productivity of their company over their employees,” the grieving sister told DailyMail.com. “My brother is a hero.”
Paying a tribute to the dedicated worker and a “one of a kind” person was also Cope’s longtime friend, Leighton Grothaus, who said:
“I knew him most of my life. He was the kind of person who would take the shirt off his back for anyone. He would go out of his way to say hi, bubbly, buy anyone a drink at the bar.”
As the 25-year-old farmer added, he sensed that something must have gone terribly wrong when Cope stopped responding to his texts after the Amazon warehouse collapsed.
“That’s when I got that real sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I started texting Claying, calling him. But he never answered. It was devastating,” he added.
Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the deceased Amazon workers including Clayton Cope, Deandre ‘Shawn’ Morrow, Etheria S. Hebb, Larry E. Virden, Kevin D. Dickey, Austin J. McEwen.
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