Walker was about to stand up to open the door – but was glad he didn’t, because he “would have been squashed”.
“The next thing I knew, I was lifted up and rolled over,” he said.
The father of five had just experienced a rare tornado.
According to another camper, Walker’s caravan was lifted 1.8m above the ground, landing on the roof before rolling on its side.
Walker hit his head on a cupboard door, splitting his head open, and fell unconscious briefly.
After he climbed out of the door, it took a bystander to tell Walker he was bleeding from his head.
“I didn’t realise I was bleeding and then blood came rushing down – I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
He was taken to Whanganui Hospital to get checked, having injured his head, neck and finger.
He said he woke up the following day with a sore back, too.
Walker said he didn’t get any sleep that night because he was trying to process what had just happened.
“Things go through your head quite quick, but it seems slow at the time,” he said.
“I realised it was a tornado at some stage, once it started picking up, but straight after I started thinking of things you see in the States and I thought, ‘man, that’s stuff you see but don’t ever expect to happen to yourself’.”
Walker’s caravan, which he has been living in for two years, was destroyed.
He said mostof its contents were salvageable, but many were damaged.
Walker was overwhelmed by the support he’d had.
“I’m the sort of guy where I am always helping people – that’s just my nature,” he said.
“My father was the same – we never expect to rely on people, we always support ourselves.”
Walker’s eldest daughter, Jamie Stratford, described her father as a man who would help anyone at the drop of a hat but was also stubborn and would never ask for help.
She has set up a Givealittle page (givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-billy-find-a-new-home-base) for donations to help find him a new home.
Walker headed back to Levin on Thursday with a car-boot full of belongings and a memory to last a lifetime.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
