Barnes & Noble Manager Helps Save Lives of Employees When Tornado Hits Building
Bookstores can be dangerous places. Not because the books themselves are harmful (though knowledge is power), but because book lovers have a hard time resisting the siren call of new print.
But one Barnes and Noble in the Arena Hub Plaza in Pennsylvania was a safe place because of the quick actions of one man named Joe Stager.
Stager is the store manager at that particular location. The guests were gone and he and the four employees still there — Patrick Abdalla, Mary Zoltewicz, Rachel Trojan, and Tara Steffon — were about to head home.
“We were getting ready to close up for the evening,” Stager said. “We’d heard some alerts that there were storms coming, but you hear alerts all the time.”
But the rain and the weather was different. It was getting increasingly heavy and loud. “All of a sudden, it just went to a whole other level,” Stager said.
And then it struck. A window shattered, and he yelled for the employees to get away from the remaining windows.
“It was so surreal. I could just see ceiling tiles falling down. It was like raining in the building.”
He ushered the four behind the information desk, where he made sure to shield the youngest employee with his own body.
The twister ripped through the building, leaving them terrified and pitching them into darkness. When Stager glanced up to monitor the emergency light at the back of the room, he came to a chilling realization.
“The light wasn’t shining back there. The wall was gone.”
The employees have been grateful for Stager’s intervention.
“Before Wednesday, I’d have said Joe was a great guy to work for,” Abdalla said. “You see how he treats customers and he was always fun to talk to… Now I see him through a different lens.”
The story spread quickly, and others were soon singing Stager’s praises.
“The manager at Barnes & Noble last night, during the tornado, huddled the employees together and lay over top of them to protect them while all hell was breaking loose around them,” Brian Oppelt, who knew one of the employees, wrote.
“This is something we all hope we would do in the same situation,” Oppelt added, “but you sir did it and should be recognized for your heroic act.”
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