Teen whose truck was tossed by tornado in wild video recalls brush with death: ‘I wasn’t scared that much’
Teenager was returning from a job interview before he found himself ‘spinning with the truck’
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Your support makes all the difference.A teen driver who drove his truck directly through the funnel of a Texas tornado and was tossed into the air in horrifying footage has said he was shocked but not scared.
Riley Leon, 16, was driving home on Monday in Elgin when he had a narrow brush with death. His truck, a red 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, got into the way of a damaging tornado.
Within seconds, the lone truck on the highway was tossed on its side and spun several times with the teenager still on its wheels before it was somehow flipped back on its four wheels by the winds littering the skies with derbies.
Mr Leon was astonishingly able to drive off unscathed after the 10-second ordeal in what he called was a blessing to survive another day in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I wasn’t scared that much but it was a shocking moment for me,” he said.
Mr Leon described the incident as “like a carnival game, those ones that flipped you over”.
“It was fast. I didn’t feeling nothing because it was like in a blink of an eye,” he said.
The incident, which was widely circulated on social media, was captured by storm chaser Brian Emfinger, who watched it unfold from across the highway.
The tornado engulfed the truck just after it wreaked havoc in a mobile home community just across the highway and destroyed a mobile home and a power line, injuring one.
“I’m thankful to God for giving me another chance in this world,” Mr Leon said in the video. “He probably left me here because I have something special coming my way.”
The teenager was returning from a job interview and called his friend telling him:’I got the job! Everything was going good."
“Out of nowhere the tornado came in and it caught me, he said. “I knew there was going to be bad weather but I never expected the tornado to be at the same moment I was at. There was a ditch and it took me there and then it took me out to the street and that’s when I was spinning with the truck.”
He said he had some scratches on his arms when he got off to see the damage to his truck. He said it had a lot of scratches and dents but it is something he can fix.
The tornado that caused devastation in Elgin was a part of a larger tornado outbreak that hit Texas and other southern states, causing widespread damage. At least one person died in New Orleans and a dozen were injured with about 66 tornado warnings issued from Monday till Tuesday.
In the aftermath of the storm, visuals showed flattened buildings, caved roofs, trees and cars toppled.
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