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MESQUITE, Texas — A Texas mother of four was talking with her husband on FaceTime one minute, and gone the next.
Petra Ruiz, 27, was one of 11 people killed when a series of tornadoes struck Texas last weekend. She'd spent the afternoon at a hair salon and called her husband, Ruben Porras, to discuss dinner plans on her way home when suddenly she let out a scream, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Porras panicked when the screen on his phone went dark and the call dropped. What he didn't yet know was that a tornado had tossed his wife's SUV from an overpass.
"I was just hoping she was still alive," Porras said.
Using an app to locate his wife's phone, Porras jumped in his car and rushed to find her. He pulled up to the area to find police cars swarming and roads blocked in every direction, so he parked his car and ran a mile to his wife's side, according to the Morning News.
Porras found what was left of Ruiz's car, but it was too late to save his wife. When he grabbed her hand and tried to talk to her, he quickly realized she was gone.
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At least 11 die from Texas tornadoes, 13 in Midwest flooding
At least 11 people died and dozens were injured in strong tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area and caused substantial damage this weekend, while 13 people died in flooding in the Midwest."She wasn't responding," he said. "She had no pulse."
Porras is left to care for the couple's four children, spanning in age from 9 to 2. He met his wife more than a decade ago when they were teenagers, and the pair had worked together for the past three years as paralegals in Dallas where they ate lunch together daily, according to the Dallas Morning News.
"I always told her, 'We're going to be two old people, sitting back fishing,'" he said. "She didn't much like the fishing part, but she liked the sitting out by the lake part."
A heartbroken Porras is just trying to keep going.
"I've got to show strength for these children," he said. "I'm going to have to fulfill whatever she wanted for them. … I'm not going to let her down."
At least 11 people died and dozens were injured in strong tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area and caused substantial damage this weekend.
