Gene Willers, Pilger Banker, Saves Staff From Tornado by Locking Them in Vault
'I Thought I Was Going to Die,' He Says
Gene Willers, a Pilger banker, risked his own life to save the lives of his eight staff members Monday. The employees of the Nebraska Midwest Bank were directly in the path of a vicious F4 tornado, so the elderly man decided to sacrifice himself to lock them inside the bank vault.
Gene Willers of Pilger, Nebraska said that tornado alarms went off only minutes before, so they had little time to prepare. They quickly secured the money in the registers.
"We closed out all the cash and so forth and got prepared," he told ABC9 News. "We could see it out the window we could see it coming. Then the sirens went off and about 5 minutes later the tornado hit."
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Before the area was destroyed, though, there was the matter of securing the eight bank employees' safety. Willers decided to put them in the strong bank vault because it could probably withstand the high winds and dangerous debris. However, the safe could only be locked from the outside, and the bank president made a heroic choice.
"It had to be locked otherwise the tornado would suck the door open. I locked them in the vault and then I went down into the cellar," he explained.
Once down there, Willers once convinced that he was going to die.
"I was prepared to die. I thought I was going to die," the elderly man recalled.
But after an hour of the high-speed winds destroying the town— the Nebraska Midwest Bank had one wall completely torn off, and the rest of Pilger was devastated by what turned out to be twin tornadoes— Willers and all his employees were unharmed.
"We're like a family and I'm the President and I take care of my family. That's all there is to it," the man said.
