Video by Sam Smith
What would you do if you were driving to a job site in stormy weather and spotted a tornado heading your way?
If you’re Sam Smith, director of operations for Insight Pest Solutions in Morrisville, Ind., you pull over and film it because your son asked you to. The video, which you can see on YouTube here, shows how close the funnel cloud came to Smith’s work vehicle.
“I got caught in a situation I didn’t really intend to get caught in,” he tells Raleigh, N.C., news station WNCN in an interview.
Smith says he was on the phone with his son as he was driving down the highway in heavy rain and hail. When he parked under an overpass and mentioned the funnel cloud he suddenly spotted, his son urged him to record it. The audio in the clip captures Smith calmly speaking to his son, telling him, “It’s coming right over me. It’s a little bit scary.”
When asked in the interview how he remained so calm, Smith explains he kept his composure so his son wouldn’t think he was in danger.
We should never underestimate the biggest danger in our profession, Vehicle Safety, when I was I working in the Operation Iraqi Freedom theater , the only loss of life I personally knew of were 3 people who lost their life’s on a buss to the chow hall that was brod sided by a 6 ton Milarary vehicle.