A Texas teen whose pickup was flipped and whipped round by a twister Monday has gotten a brand new set of wheels and plenty of assist from on-line donors.
A video of the incident, which occurred Monday a number of miles east of Austin close to Elgin, Texas, has gotten about 7 million views on Twitter after it was posted by storm chaser and photojournalist Brian Emfinger.
Since then, Riley Leon, 16, of Elgin, Texas, has been interviewed by native information shops and has seen a GoFundMe marketing campaign to pay for potential again accidents surpass $39,000.
The pickup Leon was driving Monday was flipped onto its facet and spun. When it was upright once more, Leon drove off.
“I can not imagine they drove away like that,” mentioned Emfinger in a tweet sharing the video.
The incident occurred as a number of tornadoes touched down Monday evening throughout Central Texas, inflicting main harm, accidents and not less than one reported demise.
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When the oldsters at Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet dealership in Fort Value, Texas, discovered Leon’s late-model Chevy pickup was “in fairly unhealthy form” after the incident, they determined to present him a brand new one, dealership vp Randall Shapiro instructed USA TODAY.
In a video ceremony Saturday proven on Fb, Leon and his household obtained the cherry pink 2022 Chevy Silverado 1500 LT All-Star Version pickup, which generally prices $50,000. Chevrolet and the dealership will deal with the price of the pickup, Shapiro mentioned. The dealership additionally gave Leon a verify for $15,000.
That might assist with “medical bills and every other bills that’s going to return together with what went on,” Shapiro mentioned.
It would additionally assist Leon get to work at his new job. He was coming back from a job interview at an area Whataburger when he encountered the twister. Throughout the ceremony, he mentioned his first day of labor is Monday.
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Earlier within the week, Leon watched the video of his truck being spun by the twister and instructed TV station Fox 7 in Austin it was onerous to imagine that is him contained in the truck.
“I might have most likely not been right here. However thank God I’m,” he mentioned.
“His truck was totaled, however for essentially the most half, he’s doing okay. Sadly, he has begun to expertise physique aches and extreme again ache, as one would anticipate after one of these accident,” mentioned Bianca Jaimes, who works on the college Riley attends, mentioned on the GoFundMe web page.
She and the Leon’s household arrange the web page to “assist with medical bills, because the household doesn’t have any medical health insurance,” Jaimes mentioned on the web page.
Jaimes, a college nurse at IDEA Rundberg Faculty in Austin, mentioned Leon got here to highschool Thursday, his first day again for the reason that incident, however left early with again ache, she instructed Austin NBC TV station KXAN.
“He mentioned, ‘My again has been hurting, it began hurting final evening,’” Jaimes instructed KXAN.
Contributing: Richard Corridor, Austin American-Statesman.
Observe Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.
