VIDEO: ‘It Is Coming Right Over the Top of Me’: Driver Records Video of Deadly Tornado — and It Gets Too Close for Comfort

13 Apr, 2015 by Greg Campbell

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Here’s a lesson that should come naturally: when there’s a tornado in your area, don’t stop to film it… run!

The Blaze reports on a video captured by a man who did exactly the opposite and it is pretty chilling.

Sam Smith was traveling through Illinois on a business trip Thursday when he caught sight of a giant tornado advancing over the horizon — so he stopped his vehicle and began recording the twister on his cellphone.

He said on the clip that he wasn’t sure where the tornado was headed, so he didn’t want to go any further.

Smith found out soon enough.

“It looks like it’s coming right towards me,” he’s heard saying on the clip. “I have honestly never been in a tornado before.”

It appeared too late for the North Carolina man to attempt to gun it down the highway, so Smith backed up his truck under an overpass — joining 10 other vehicles whose driver’s had the same idea.

The video also includes the sound of kids’ voices, but Smith said in an interview that he was speaking to his 10-year-old son on the phone and then hung up as the tornado drew closer, Patch reported.

Smith’s voice gradually became more tense.

“It is coming right over the top of me,” he said. “It’s totally scary. I don’t know really what else to do.”

When it crossed the freeway right in front of him, Smith said it felt like his truck was “about to lift up off the ground.”

But it never sounded like he panicked — though he managed one “Oh, crap” during the proceedings.

All appeared well after the tornado passed. All it seemed to do was bend back the truck’s rearview mirrors.

The twister was given an EF-4 rating, the second-highest, which can have winds as strong as 200 miles per hour. It caused two deaths and 22 injuries.

It’s terrific that Smith was not injured or killed. However, there’s a lesson here: staying alive is more important than documenting one’s own curiosity. Smith should have been high-tailing it away from the tornado as quickly as possible, not stopping to video it.