PRESTONSBURG – A man who was one of four people injured during the rainstorm at the Jenny Wiley Pioneer Festival Friday was transported to Cabell-Huntington Hospital last week.

The three other individuals suffered minor scrapes and bumps, said Prestonsburg Fire Chief Bobby Carpenter.

Carpenter said the people, whose names were not released to the public, were injured when two tent poles came unfixed during last Friday’s rainstorm and caused the tent to become unstable.

“The tent didn’t collapse,” Carpenter said. “A couple of poles fell and the rain was coming down really heavy at the time.”

By choice, the man, who was a craftsworker at the festival, was not taken to a local hospital immediately, Carpenter said.

“He refused treatment and went to the hospital on his own later that night,” said Carpenter. “They didn’t transport anybody from the scene by ambulance.”

Carpenter said he and other city workers had very little contact with the man or the three other people injured at the scene, saying they were working to secure the tent to prevent further injury or damage.

The tent, which was set up in the parking lot across from the Floyd County Justice Center, housed craft booths. The vendors there the afternoon the storm approached Prestonsburg say it was an “awful” scene.

“It was awful,” said Mountain Crafts owner Sandy Nickles. “There was people screaming and running over top of each other trying to get out of there.”

Fellow craftsworker Kelly Prater, who also had a booth set up in the tent, was the first person to get to the injured man.

“I’ve never seen nothing like it,” said Prater. “We were all sitting there and selling stuff and watching and all of a sudden the tent started shaking and when it started shaking another big gust come and it blowed him down. His head hit the ground and after that he wasn’t responsive.”

Prater, who said the man was bleeding from his head after the fall, said he grabbed the man’s arm with one hand and a fallen pole in the other.

Nickles said from the time the storm started until the time it passed was about 20 minutes.

“My son was standing outside the tent and he was the one who screamed for everybody to run,” continued Nickles. “He seen the wind and rain coming up the street, but by then it was too late.”