Teen In Now-Famous Tornado Pickup Truck Video Is Fine, And Cool As A Cucumber

The driver of the red pickup truck in that viral tornado video
this week is Riley Leon, 16. As you can see in this 
smiley photo from KHOU, he's fine. 

UPDATE:

The only truly bad news in the story below, which I posted yesterday, was that Riley Leon's beloved truck was written off by the insurance company as a total loss.

Obviously it was still drivable, but the dents scratches and broken glass from the tornado left it in ruins.

The truck had been a family workhorse for at least a decade.  

The bad news is now a thing of the past, too. As Jalopnik reports:

"Chevrolet partnered with local dealer Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet in Fort Worth, Texas. He's getting a brand new 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT All Star Edition - a truck that regularly goes for over $40,000 a pop. Chevy is also donating an additional $50,000 to aid the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts in Texas."

Let's just hope Riley Leon doesn't take up storm chasing with his new truck. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

 

 There's been a viral video by Brian Emfinger circulating this week of that red pickup truck getting caught in a tornado along a highway in Elgin, Texas.  

As I noted the other day, the video show the tornado flipping the truck on its side, spinning it a couple times while still on its side, then violently plopping it down on its wheels. 

Meanwhile, power lights arc and explode all around. The driver inside the truck then seems to casually drive away from the swirling metal roof sheets, debris and dirt.

Local media in Texas inevitably tracked down the driver. He is Riley Leon, age 16. Among the television stations scoring an interview with Leon was Fox 7 in Austin. 

The kid says he's fine, both physically and emotionally. He's got a few minor scrapes and cuts on his left arm, and he's philosophical about what happened. "Life keeps going on and we cannot let ourselves get down because of a single problem," Leon said. 

Leon said knew dangerous weather was in the forecast Monday, but he didn't want to miss a job interview at Whataburger. However, he said he never expected the tornado to be at the same moment as me and at the same place.  

Still image of the viral video of the red pickup truck
caught in the Texas tornado, highlighted here so you can
see it better. The 16 year old boy who was driving the
truck is fine. 

He had missed a U-turn, but he found the next one and began using that when the tornado hit.  He told Fox 7 the experience was like this: 

"I was driving normally, seatbelt on, hands of my driving steering wheel......and I was going to take the U-turn. I felt my truck lift up and it took me to a ditch, and put me on my side and spin me out and that's where spinning into the road and it got on its four wheels and the video shows that I kept driving, but actually I just drove off. I drove out of the road to not cause more accidents"

Two things here that are cool:  First, he was wearing a seat belt, which I'm sure prevented Leon from being seriously injured or even thrown from the truck. Second, I'm impressed that the logic for him driving away is he didn't want anybody to collide with him, causing a bigger problem.  

He stopped down the road and a brown van pulled up, and the van's occupants asked  Leon if he was OK. At this point, he was undecided as to whether to just drive home or get help. He'd lost his phone in the chaos, so the people in the brown van let Leon use their phone to call his parents. 

Leon said he learned his lesson about driving when the weather is forecast to become dangerous. "The number one rule, the number one thing I learned was if there's going to be bad weather, stay home. No matter, no matter how important the thing is to you, stay  home. Your life, your life matters more than other stuff."

The teenager say he is bummed the truck seems to be destroyed, since it had been in the family for years. His father had recently sold it to him. On the bright side, Emfinger's video will be excellent proof to provide to his insurance carrier. 

Remarkably, the 11th grader went back to school on Wednesday. Everybody at school is calling him "Tornado Boy."  Oh, and he got the job at Whataburger. He starts Monday.  

Here's news video with Leon from television station KVUE with additional details. It also includes the Brian Emginger clip of the truck and the tornado. If you don't see the video displayed on your device, click on this hyperlink: