Trucker largely unscathed after tornado flips rig three times
A truck driver says he is lucky to be alive after a tornado sucked up his truck and flipped it multiple times outside of a warehouse in Alabama on Monday.
The tornado touched down on August 30th in Saraland, Alabama and injured three people, including the truck driver.
According to News 5, trucker LeFrazier Stallworth was waiting his turn at the China Doll/Dixie Lily Foods Warehouse when the winds suddenly picked up and a tornado came barreling towards him.
“I thought I was going to die,” Stallworth said. “I heard the wind whistling through and it lifted the tractor up a couple of times and set it down and the third time it picked it up and turned it over and the wind started pushing the trailer through the parking lot,” and dragging Stallworth’s knee across the pavement throughout the ordeal.
Warehouse workers say that they realized something was wrong as soon as the tornado passed.
“Everybody started running and we saw everything spinning down here,” said Terry Hubbard, a warehouse worker who helped to pull Stallworth from the overturned truck.
“It was extremely loud. The roof ripping off, the truck fell over, metal everywhere,” said Will Parker, the food company’s vice president.
“Adrenaline just kicks in and you do what you have to do and call 911 and get up here,” he said. “Just in a lot of pain, he was trapped with his seatbelt. It fell on the driver’s side of the truck, just couldn’t get out. We just wanted to get him out as fast as we could and get him some help.”
I climbed up on top and grabbed him and he was hollering he was in pain. You just don’t think about yourself you just do what you have to do,” Hubbard added.
Stallworth was then taken to a nearby hospital and treated for a sprained knee and other minor injuries. He has since been released and is expected to recover, but he says that he plans on taking tornado warnings far more seriously after his recent ordeal.
“If they say stay at home and don’t get on the roads,” said Stallworth, “that’s exactly what I’m going to do. God was definitely on my side.”