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Timex Baby Growing Up Save Email Print
Lauderdale County, Miss.
Posted: 6:07 PM May 8, 2008
Last Updated: 11:21 PM May 8, 2008
Reporter: Lindsey Brown
Email Address: lindsey.brown@wtok.com


A | A | A

Just about anyone who lives in this area long enough eventually hears the story of "the Timex miracle baby".

Tanner Moody, 3-months-old at the time, lived through extraordinary conditions and is old enough now to talk about the tornado '92.

Tanner was swept away by a killer tornado, then rescued by his parents in the dark. The child was found hanging from a pine tree, ten feet from the ground, by his night shirt. Tanner is now 16-years-old.

"I really feel like an ordinary person," said Tanner. "I just feel like I got a lucky break."

Instead, many consider Tanner a miracle. The storm flipped the family's mobile home several times. Their son was missing for around 20 minutes.

"All of a sudden, I heard him crying," said his father, Keith Moody at the time. "He was hanging upside down, crying, from a tree."

"I believe in my heart that the Lord looked over him and has some sort of purpose in life for him," said Moody said recently.

The people of the Zero community have long cleaned up from the storm. But when it came through sixteen years ago, it turned much of Lauderdale county upside down. Three women died. Over 200 homes were destroyed.

Timex put Tanner in one of its ads, under the headline, Takes a lickin', keeps on tickin'.

Through the ordeal, Tanner suffered a fractured rib, a hand injury , and some visible scratches. Scars on his hand are the only reminder of that night.

"I don't see how he made it, not through all of that," said Tanner's mother the day after the deadly storm. Sixteen years later, she is still amazed.

"He's a gift from God truly," said Laura Potter. "And God allowed him to be alive and me to be alive to watch him grow.

But for Tanner, it's his parents he appreciates most, noting it was pitch black and they found him.

In part two Friday, Newscenter 11 visits Tanner at Clarkdale High School, where he is a sophomore. We'll talk with him about how he feels about being known as "the Timex baby".

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Keith Moody holding Tanner, 1992
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Posted by: Jessica Dooley Location: unioin on May 9, 2008 at 08:48 AM
hey tanner this is jessica... tanner you were lucky. the lord was watchin over you... well i got to go love you see you soon

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