Joplin Pizza Hut employee: Hero manager saved our lives in tornado

UPDATE: Girlfriend not surprised by Pizza Hut manager's heroics during Joplin tornado  

JOPLIN, Missouri - At the Pizza Hut on Rangline road in Joplin, Daniel Fluhart is one of the few survivors to emerge from the debris.

“The only reason we survived is because he held the door shut, with a strap,” explained Fluhart.

Fluhart said his manager, Christopher Lucas, saved lives as Sunday’s tornado rolled through Joplin. Four employees and fifteen customers watched from inside the restaurant as the storm bore down on them.

“You knew the storm was serious. You could not even see a funnel, it was a mile wide,” exclaimed Fluhart. “All you saw was a wall.”

Fluhart says his manager tried to get everyone into a walk in freezer, but according to Fluhart, people were being “ripped” out of the freezer into the tornado.

That’s when Fluhart said Lucas took heroic action. The restaurant manager wrapped a bungee cable holding the freezer door shut around his arm, trying to keep it shut. Fluhart tried to aid his boss.

“As soon as I saw the door slipped, I grabbed him,” said Fluhart. “I grabbed him, and I holding on with one hand to the cable, but he was holding it mostly.”

“And then, when everything blew away, he was gone, the door was gone, everything…”

Everything except the lives a father of two fought to save.

On Friday, via Twitter - AMTdirect is making a donation in the name of NPC International employee, Christopher Lucas