Two goats that vanished in an Oklahoma tornado ended up helping rescuers find the family trapped beneath their wrecked home.

In Enid, Oklahoma, the Sloat family took cover as an EF4 tornado tore through their home and left it in ruins. When the storm passed, they were alive but could not get out because heavy debris had collapsed over their cellar door.

“There was glass shattering, we could hear bricks falling, and our cellar door dented in,” Mary Sloat recalled.

Above ground, buildings were flattened, and the structure that sheltered the family’s goats, Percy and Penny, was gone.

“There’s just a concrete slab; we didn’t even find the plywood,” Sloat said.

The family thought the goats, which they had raised since birth, had been killed.

“These are goats that our whole family raised, and my daughter showed one of them,” she said.

While they waited in the dark, Sloat said she and her daughter thought they heard the animals.

“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 and were standing on the debris pile above the cellar. Sloat said rescuers later told the family the goats helped point them to the right spot.

“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 then began digging, and the Sloat family was pulled to safety.

Now, as the family starts rebuilding, Sloat said she is still trying to take in what happened.

“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,” Sloat said. “I don’t know of anybody else who has a goat story like this.”

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