Tornado carried teen 1,300ft

A US teenager may have set a new record after he was picked up and carried by a tornado for a quarter of a mile.

Matt Suter, 19, was in his family's trailer home near Fordland, Missouri, when it was hit by the twister. "It got louder and louder, like 10 military jets coming at us," he told the Springfield News-Leader. "Suddenly there was lots of pressure inside the house. The front and back doors that were both locked came off their hinges and blew out."

Matt, wearing only his boxer shorts, was hit and knocked out by a flying lamp before the tornado sucked him through the collapsing trailer walls. Propelled by 150mph winds, he was hurled up into the air and flew over a barbed wire fence more than 200 yards away. Matt eventually landed in soft grass in an open field, dazed and bleeding from the scalp wound, but otherwise intact. "I've always told my girlfriend I wanted to see a tornado," he said. "But I sure didn't want to be in one." A National Weather Service official used a GPS device to work out that he travelled 1,307ft. "I've never heard of anyone going that far in a tornado and surviving," said Tom Grazulis, a Vermont-based tornado researcher. -