Blind Father Carries His 24YO Disabled Son on Shoulders to Save Him from Hurricane Dorian

Both he and his son are disabled, and yet, he made sure that he got his son to safety even amidst the raging chaos the natural disaster brought.

By Esha Iyer

March 24, 2023

Posted March 24, 2023

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on September 10, 2019. It has since been updated.

Hurricane Dorian. It's just two words and yet the only image that pops into one's mind is the utter devastation the category five hurricane left in its wake across Florida and the Bahamas. Sadly, it was the latter that faced the intense brunt of it as homes, vehicles, and more importantly, people got lost in the destruction. With hundreds missing and homeless, their abodes demolished in one go, those who survived truly had the best luck.

Especially this father and son duo. When the calamity hit the city of Abaco, Bahamas resident, Brent Lowe's roof had blown off clean and the ocean was looming close. He knew that he needed to make a run for it and take his 24-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy and can’t walk, with him. But the hurricane wasn't his only obstacle — Brent is blind.

Putting his adult son on his shoulders, he stepped off his porch only to be greeted by a swirling current that came up to his chin, he said, according to MSN News. “It was scary, so scary,” said Brent, 49.

Holding onto neighbors as he made his way about, he found a way to the closest home that was still standing. To us, the five minutes it took was an eternity for him, especially as he carried his son through water and wind gusts that 220 miles per hour that day. He told the New York Times that he's seen plenty of storms come and go but none that were this severe. "I've never experienced anything like that in my life," he said.

Brent, his son and a number of his neighbors whose houses were destroyed took shelter in the home that managed to withstand the pressure of the storm and they hid out till Monday. Then, a rescue bus arrived to take them an emergency shelter where they got some sleep before being evacuated to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. "I came here with the clothes that I had on from Saturday," Brent said, according to AOL News.

However, though he and his son were safe, he started worrying about his eldest daughter, whom he hadn't seen or spoken to in days. "Right before we had the wind, I spoke with her," the 42-year-old told the New York Times. "I wish I could have been able to call and ask somebody, you know, because I really was worried about them. I was worried about everybody."

According to the Washington Examiner, despite the carnage left behind in Abaco, Brent says that he wants to return home to his family and community as soon as he can, though it's not clear what he might be going back to. “That’s where my family is. My kids are there, my brothers, my sisters, they’re all there," he said to the New York Times. "I’m just wondering where we’re going to live when I go back home, what I’m going to do," he added.

Sadly, Brent is not the only person who's been left homeless. The CNN reported that Hurrican Dorian left more than 70,000 of the island's residents without a home and racked up a death toll of 42 people with the risk of that number increasing. "When we were driving up, we could smell ... death," CNN's Patrick Oppmann said about Bevans Town on the island of Grand Bahama. "Every house, every structure, every life has been essentially destroyed in this area.

At least 30 people in the Bahamas are dead after #HurricaneDorian, and the death toll is expected to rise. Many bodies are believed to still be under the wreckage.

Thousands of people are reported still missing, many of them children. pic.twitter.com/bGDnX9OqvF
— AJ+ (@ajplus) September 6, 2019