Two pet goats helped rescuers find an Oklahoma family trapped beneath the rubble of their own home after an EF4 tornado tore through Enid.
The Sloat family had taken cover in their cellar as the storm hit. When the noise stopped, debris had collapsed over the cellar door, sealing them inside. Above ground, their house was gone. So was the small structure where they kept their goats, Percy and Penny.
“There was glass shattering, we could hear bricks falling, and our cellar door dented in,” Mary Sloat told KFOR Oklahoma’s News 4.
“There’s just a concrete slab; we didn’t even find the plywood,” she said of the goats’ shelter.
The goats had been raised by the whole family. Mary’s daughter had even shown one of them.
“These are goats that our whole family raised, and my daughter showed one of them,” Sloat said.
Then, from the dark of the cellar, Mary and her daughter heard something.
“My daughter and I could have sworn that we heard goat noises, and I thought, there’s no way,” Sloat said.
Percy and Penny had survived. They had also somehow made their way back to the spot where the family was trapped. When rescuers arrived, the goats were standing on the pile of bricks directly above the cellar door.
“He said, when we came around the back of the house, your goats were standing on the pile of bricks, and we were pretty sure that’s probably where the cellar was,” Sloat said.
Rescuers started digging. The Sloat family was pulled to safety.
Now, as the rebuild begins, Mary Sloat says the goats have earned themselves a certain amount of leeway.
“On days whenever they’re being ornery and they headbutt me, or they nip at my fingers, I’m going to have to remember this,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody else who has a goat story like this.”
