Remembering David ‘Roaddog’ Dean, a victim of the 2019 Beauregard tornado

David “Roaddog” Wayne Dean was always thinking of others, even up until his final moments.

On March 3, 2019, David sent a text message to a friend warning of incoming storms, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

That storm turned out to be a tornado that claimed David’s life and 22 others in the Beauregard area of Lee County, Alabama.

When the tornado hit that afternoon, David’s wife, Carol, was working at a Walmart store. When she couldn’t get hold of him, she raced home to find tragedy had struck.

Carol and David’s son, David Theo Dean, got to the home first and found David’s body in a neighbor’s yard. Emergency personnel and neighbors tried to resuscitate David, lover of riding and owning Harley motorcycles, but he was gone, according to a report from the New York Times.

Carol was allowed to stay with her husband for a few moments before he had to be taken away, according to the Associated Press.

The couple had been married for three years.

“They took me down to him,” Carol told the AP, “and I got to spend a little time with him before they took him away.”

An AP photo of Carol shows her crying as she sifts through the debris of her home with family members.

“He was one in a million. He’d send me flowers to work just to let me know he loved me,” Carol told the AP. “I’m not going to be the same.”

David left behind a wife, numerous sons, a daughter and many more family members, according to his obituary.

“’RoadDog’ often imitated, never duplicated. He loved everybody,” his obituary reads. “He loved life to the fullest. There was never a dull moment with him around.”