A rare tornado touched down in Santa Cruz County over the weekend, creating chaos and leaving a CAL FIRE battalion chief shaken but thankful to be alive.
Battalion Chief Manny Garcia unexpectedly found himself directly in the path of the twister on Mount Hermon Road Saturday afternoon.
Garcia recounted his run-in with the tornado in an interview with NBC Bay Area. As he drove through intensifying rain, he noticed a van in front of him start to lean and shift. Then, without warning, the twister lifted his vehicle.
“All of a sudden, I’m up in the air,” Garcia told the station. “I got turned around—not completely, but slightly—and then I was dropped.”
The tornado overturned his CAL FIRE truck, scattering tools, medical equipment, and even the truck’s camper shell. Trapped inside the flipped vehicle, Garcia, with the help of passersby, kicked out the front windshield to escape.
