One of the casualties from Friday night's tornado was Major Leslie Leatherman with the Laurel County Fire Department when the tornado hit.

Major Leatherman was one of the first to respond to the Sunshine Hills neighborhood, where he and his wife also lived.

It is believed that he died shielding his wife from harm.

Deputy Chief Terry White and Barger knew Leatherman for his entire career as a public servant, and reflects on the legacy Leatherman leaves behind.

We were high school friends, actually.

We graduated the same year of high school, which was 1986, at Laurel County.

Honestly, we were looking for something to do past high school, you know, post educational.

So we both decided at that time to join the volunteer fire department.

So over the years, he's held the firefighter position.

Lieutenant captain.

Currently, he was a major at one point.

He did hold the assistant chief's position for a brief amount of time.

This is an all volunteer organization.

So that's this is all volunteer as a career.

He chose a path that was also a public service.

We joined the fire department in 86.

Around 1991 92.

He attended EMT emergency medical technician class and became a licensed EMT in the state of Kentucky, and then transitioned to being a tail communicator at the Kentucky State Police post here in London.

And then when he left there, he eventually landed at Whitley County 911, which is an adjacent county and was the assistant director.

So he's spent his entire adult life being a public servant.

He was very funny.

He was kind of a jokester.

He loved his family.

He had his wife, Michelle, which was also critically injured during the tornado with his son, when Evan West was constantly bragging on him and what he was doing.

And he had a huge heart and he was just very calm.

You know, other people could be in a very chaotic situation.

He would just be the calm in the storm, be like, you know, we'll do this and this is what we're going to do and we'll take care of it.

Somebody said, well, you know, how do you all remember?

What's his legacy?

And I'm like, you know that we're still moving.

We're still doing what he would do if he were here.

And this is what he would want us to do, is to keep serving the public and taking care of our community.