The powerful air current of the tornado carried his body and continued to fly forward. The hard angle steel on the high-voltage line tower scraped his arms to the ground. However, with a will harder than steel, he miraculously restrained his fate. throat……
The tornado rises, father and son fly to the sky
Casey, a cinematographer from Texas, USA, loves to shoot the thrilling scenes of tornadoes on the ground. This is because he was deeply impressed by the spectacular scenes of tornadoes at sea when he served in the Navy.
38-year-old Casey often said to people: “It is undoubtedly dangerous to use a wide-angle lens to shoot a frontal tornado against the wind, but it’s wonderful to experience the feeling of a tornado hitting the camera!” Casey was able to shoot destructive power at close range The strong tornado was because he had a special “armored” Ford car. This 1997 F-450 long-wheelbase car was completely unrecognizable after modification. Casey welded a few thick pieces to the body. The steel plate makes the total weight of the car sufficient to ensure that it is not overturned by a tornado. Casey’s camera is installed on the shock-proof seat of the car roof turret. The turret can rotate 360 degrees, and people can take pictures of the outside in the iron fence on the roof. Casey named this modified Ford car “Tornado Interceptor.”
On November 25, 2004, Casey drove to Smith County, Texas. The local weather station issued a tornado warning a few hours ago, and there are very few vehicles on the road. At about 10 am, Casey parked his “tornado interceptor” on Interstate 90, waiting for the tornado to appear. Unlike usual, Casey brought his 8-year-old son, Gene, with him. In the car, the naughty son had long been clamoring to ride the “armored car” to chase the “elephant nose” of the tornado.
At 11:50 at noon, Casey, who had been on the interstate for nearly two hours, lifted his spirits: he saw a large dark gray cloud finally appeared in the northwestern sky, and as the clouds gathered in large numbers, the clouds became more and more compact. The lower. In a short while, just as Casey had expected, the tumbling and fission cloud formed a “funnel”-shaped cloud cylinder like magic! Casey was delighted to find that the upper part of the cloud cylinder was slanted in his direction, which meant that a tornado with a “straight-forward” characteristic was coming towards him!
About two minutes later, the sky in front of the highway became dim and dark, and Casey looked from a distance, and saw that the tornado “funnel” that touched the sky became clearer and clearer. He quickly leaned on the roof camera and stared at the front of the road intently. He predicted that a tornado with a wind speed of at least 110 meters per second would soon hit his camera.
”Oh my God!” Casey cried out suddenly, he couldn’t believe what he saw: On the highway in front of the car, his son Gene didn’t know when he slipped out of the car. He ran to meet the “elephant nose” of the tornado happily! Casey’s heart almost popped out of his chest. He quickly opened the car door and chased his son while shouting. He wanted to grab his son before the tornado and drag him back into the “armored car”. However, as the tornado approached, the ash rolled up by the violent wind poured straight into Casey’s eyes. Against the resistance of the wind, Casey rushed to his son. The son who wanted to see “Elephant Nose” could not hear Casey’s cry.
When Casey finally caught up with his son, the father and son were more than 70 meters away from the “armored vehicle”, and the wind was blowing on the road. Flying sand and rocks. An extremely nervous Casey dragged his son around and ran towards the “armored car”. However, as soon as the father and son ran more than ten meters back, Casey felt his body was lifted by an invisible force, and the son who was holding it was also light. A lot! Feeling bad, he immediately ran to the low-lying place on the side of the road, but it was too late, and Casey’s feet could no longer fall on the solid road. As soon as an ominous premonition flashed through his mind, he felt that he was suddenly lost. Zhongyi, with a light foot, he and his son suddenly rose into the air and flew off the ground…
Dangerous, “flying” ten miles
Casey and his son fell into the “eye of the wind” of the tornado.
As a veteran who has been chasing tornadoes for many years, Casey found helplessly that he had fallen into the claws of tornadoes this time. The son Gene was terrified by the sudden change. He was struggling in horror in mid-air, with a vague scream in his throat. Casey grabbed his son’s arm with iron-like hands, father and son. “Flying” in midair with a tornado like a “spaceman”.
The tornado is like a huge vacuum cleaner, roaring and raging along the way, pulling trees and destroying houses. But the center of the “wind eye” is relatively calm, but the air pressure is too low. Casey feels out of breath. Because the air pressure inside the tornado “funnel” is much lower than the outside, there is a strong hot air moving from bottom to top. , To replenish energy to the tornado. Kathy and his son, who were held in the air by the air current, were “flying” with the “funnel”, up and down. After being relieved, Casey began to anxiously think about how to escape the danger.
Casey, who has been chasing tornadoes for 7 years, has filmed countless thrilling scenes, but at this moment, he feels the immense power of tornadoes immersively! When the cyclone center passed a highway, Casey saw a white car being lifted into the air by the airflow, twisted like a drunkard, and then fell heavily below him to the ground.
The “funnel” that keeps Casey and his son behind bars is more than ten meters in diameter. Casey saw some branches, tires, gasoline cans and other debris floating in the cyclone. He wanted to grab a tire because when the human body fell on the ground. The tire can act as a buffer, but the tire is always a distance away from him and can’t be reached at all. Although the few broken branches floating in the “funnel” are within reach, they are of no use to him.
The tornado that was devastating along the way uprooted the trees in the wilderness, and the broken trunks were sucked into the “funnel” from time to time. Suddenly, a thick-mouthed tree trunk hit Casey’s back. The intense pain made him almost let go of his son’s hand. Casey was frightened in a cold sweat. With lingering heart, Casey subconsciously grabbed his son’s arm. . Now, he not only has to consider how to get out of danger, but also always guard against the whirling things in the “funnel” hitting the father and son.
The tornado suddenly accelerated, and the airflow rotated Casey’s body 180 degrees. God! As soon as he turned around, he was shocked to find that he was flying straight towards a tall cylindrical water tower. Casey took a breath: At the current wind speed, once he hits the hard concrete tower of the water tower, he and There is no doubt that the son will die.
Casey wanted to avoid the water tower, but the strong air flow made him involuntarily, facing the fast approaching water tower, Casey had to fight to the death! At the moment when he was about to collide with the water tower, Casey tried his best to kick the tower. After the huge reaction force made his body bounce on the tower like a basketball, it followed the rotating tornado again. Flew into the air.
Because of the excessive force when pushing the tower, Casey’s heel bone broke, and he felt the pain unbearable at this time. After avoiding this disaster, he dared not be careless. Watch the situation ahead closely. Suddenly, Casey’s eyes lit up, and on a sloping ground far away, there were a few towering trees! He must seize this rare opportunity! Casey quickly adjusted her posture and hugged her son tightly with her left hand. If he is lucky, he can fly to those big trees. He will desperately hug the branches with his free right hand, even if he is stabbed all over by the branches!
However, instead of flying straight to the water tower just now, when the leaping tornado passed by the slope where the big tree stood, the airflow suddenly lifted Casey and his son into the air nearly 20 meters high. Casey watched the dense canopy from her body. Then, a precious chance of escape was lost!
The tornado seemed to have deliberately teased Casey. After the fast-rotating “funnel” jumped over the slope, it descended suddenly, pushed against the ground, and overturned the roof of a bee-keeping shed. Several hives were sucked into the “funnel”. Casey was shocked. Fortunately, the bees in the beehive seemed to be deterred by the strange air pressure and did not “rush out”.
After a false alarm, Casey was distraught again. He knew that the tornado usually lasts only ten minutes. If there is no miracle, the father and son will fall from mid-air to the ground when the tornado ends, and the consequences will be disastrous. Casey is worried about his son’s safety, how he hopes to meet a life-saving tree again! But the gray ground was bare, with only a winding road.
An orange building on the side of the highway suddenly broke into Casey’s sight. “Gillett Gas Station!” Casey couldn’t help being taken aback. Yes, his “tornado interceptor” had refueled at this gas station more than once. This means that he and his son have “flyed” a full 10 miles with the tornado!
About to fall, a miracle happens
In Casey’s photography career, he has filmed the thrilling scenes of a tornado rolling a whole cow into the air, and also filmed the spectacular scene of a tornado “funnel” that ravaged an orchard suddenly dropping an “apple rain” a few miles away. But he never expected that his “tornado journey” today-in the dangerous mid-air, he and his son had actually “flyed” 10 miles!
The wind speed has slowed down, and the dangerous air journey is about to come to an end. Casey’s mind flashed through the horror of the cow crashing to the ground in midair. He subconsciously hugged his son tightly to his waist. He had made up his mind and was falling to the ground. At the moment, let your body fall to the ground first, so as to cushion the injury of your son. Casey is sure to do this. When serving in the Navy, he has mastered the escape skills of falling into the air.
Casey looked at his son with infinite affection, and suddenly, he found himself floating towards a high-voltage line tower of more than 20 meters in the distance! If it had been a few minutes ago, Casey would be very nervous because he was worried about hitting the tower, but now he had a bold idea. He decided to use his flesh and blood to gamble that he hoped to hit the tower. Even if he hit his head and broke a few ribs, he must try to hug the angle steel on the tower!
The high-voltage line tower was getting closer and closer to him, and Casey, who was about to fight to the death, opened his eyes wide. Unexpectedly, when he was very close to the tower, he realized that the direction of his flight had deviated from the tower by several meters! Casey looked helplessly at the staggered steel angle tower passing by on his left.
Just when Casey was extremely frustrated for missing the tower, he suddenly felt that the airflow inside the “Wind Eye” began to sink, and his son Gene’s body became heavy. “Not good!” Casey’s heart “cocked” a bit, the tornado was about to end, and their father and son’s frightening journey had entered the countdown!
At the juncture of life and death, Casey was watching how the tornado would change in the end. He felt that the rotating wind in the “eye of the wind” was weakening, and the airflow was gradually sinking. The tornado that had become the end of the force made Casey’s “flying” slower, but He was still floating in the midair more than ten meters high. The bad luck seemed irreversible, and the terrible fall was imminent. Kathy prayed that the bad luck would end soon, and imagined that their father and son would fall into a bush.
Just as Casey felt that the wind speed dropped sharply and the tragedy was about to happen, he was pleasantly surprised to see another high-voltage line tower rushing toward him about 40 meters away from him! It’s too late, it’s fast. At the moment of passing through the tower, Casey gritted his teeth and stretched out his right arm to quickly hold an angle steel. The inertia of “flying” made his body still fly forward. The hard and rough angle steel immediately scraped Casey’s arm into the flesh, but his arm miraculously restrained the angle steel at that moment! With a will harder than steel, Casey strangled the throat of fate.
Almost at the same moment, the abrupt tornado magically threw the debris from the suction funnel into the air. On the iron tower, Casey breathed a sigh of relief when he witnessed the terrible scene of tree trunks, tires and gasoline cans bouncing and rolling after falling from the ground in midair.
The horrible tornado disappeared without a trace in an instant, and the wilderness was silent. Casey, who was climbing on the high-speed iron tower, had a feeling of aftermath. His right arm holding the cold angle steel was still bleeding red blood. It doesn’t hurt at all.
An hour later, a passing car appeared on the distant highway. A driver saw Casey and his son trapped on the high-voltage line tower. They were saved!
