I couldn't leave the other kids: tornado hero teacher Escape from the ruins: Steve Cobb carries daughter Jordan while wife Ledonna walks with a pupil. The couple saved both children from the tornado-ravaged school. The family pictured on newspaper front pages around the world escaping from the wreckage of the Oklahoma tornado have described "holding on for dear life" as the 320km/h twister struck. Ledonna Cobb, a teacher at Briarwood Elementary, and her husband, Steve, were photographed walking out of the ruined school with their daughter Jordan as panicked pupils stumbled behind. "I couldn't leave the other kids," Mrs Cobb said. They all are special to me and I couldn't leave them. I wanted my family to be safe, but I also wanted everyone else's family to be safe, too. Mrs Cobb, 38, suffered a cut and badly bruised left eye while protecting pupils from the rubble and collapsing masonry. "I was just grabbing on to whatever I could," she told American ABC. Once the roof lifted off of the building, I felt myself being sucked and knew if I was taken, all the little babies underneath me would be gone. So I just held on, I held on for dear life until the wall fell on top of me and knocked me out. Mr Cobb, 39, who arrived to help, spoke of his anguish at his inability to protect more children while trying to ensure his family was safe. "I wished I could have split myself into two and stayed there, tried to help out some of those other kids, because I could imagine how they were feeling at that time," he said. Daughter Jordan said while their ordeal lasted only a few minutes, it "seemed like it was an hour. It was crazy. I can't even believe we survived that. I tried to get up and move the bricks over my leg but it hurt so much.