Sorry about the morbid nature of this question.

It feels like most of the deaths from tornadoes come from the collapse of buildings, or from flying shrapnel hitting people. What happens, though, if you're out in a big empty field and it's just you and the tornado? Would you get sucked up into the air by the wind and dropped back onto the ground from a great height? Blown sideways and tumbled along the ground until your body gets too banged up to keep working? Might you just get blown to the side of it and turn out okay?

Would there be a survival strategy in this situation, like balling yourself up tightly, going limp and letting it throw you around (to minimize bone breakage), or flattening yourself onto the ground?

I hope to never find out but I'm guessing a person would be out of luck.

I would think that the best thing to do would be to just go limp.

My God Daughter's uncle was in a tornado. But he was in his trailer house and it was picked up and thrown across the road. Both he and his bird did survive it with little injury. Pretty remarkable.

I've often wondered myself what would happen for a person to just get sucked up in one. On the radio today there was a man who was in his pickup and it got picked up and he survived and said it felt like being rattled around in a sardine can but at the time he didn't know what had happened, an eyewitness told him he'd been in the tornado.

Tony Marino wrote:

Sorry about the morbid nature of this question.

It feels like most of the deaths from tornadoes come from the collapse of buildings, or from flying shrapnel hitting people. What happens, though, if you're out in a big empty field and it's just you and the tornado? Would you get sucked up into the air by the wind and dropped back onto the ground from a great height? Blown sideways and tumbled along the ground until your body gets too banged up to keep working? Might you just get blown to the side of it and turn out okay?

Would there be a survival strategy in this situation, like balling yourself up tightly, going limp and letting it throw you around (to minimize bone breakage), or flattening yourself onto the ground?

I wonder. My guess is that if someone gets sucked up by a tornado in an empty field, it would carry them quite a ways until it eventually sucked something else up that violently collides with them. Or it may violently throw them to the ground and kill them.

Good question though. Definitely one for someone who studies natural disasters.

I would think with all that tossing around that you would more than likely die unless it spit you out real quickly.

I think it sucks you up and spits you back out. Definitely nothing I'd ever want to experience.

NY pretty much has it.

http://www.tornadoproject.com/cellar/tttttttt.htm

Quote :

Could a person actually get sucked up into the tornado?
Most people killed by tornadoes have been blown sideways, with only a small vertical movement. "Sucked up" is not really an accurate description of being caught in air that is rushing towards the vortex. As soon as debris is carried upward, it is usually spun out of the vortex. Centrifugal force throws things out. To get lifted high, something would have to stay in place through the 100-200 mph winds at the edge of the vortex, and whatever was holding it in place would have to release it at the point in the vortex of maximum upward velocity. Only a very small percentage of all debris is carried aloft, but in rare cases, as in the the Pampa, Texas video, cars and trucks can find their way into that maximum uplift area. It is messy business inside the naturally occurring blender that is the tornado.

How likely is that to happen? Has anyone ever gotten lifted up and carried a ways?
Yes.

How far?
The longest distance is about a mile.

Did they live or not?
The man died shortly after rescuers found him. This happened on May 1, 1930, in Kansas.

Chris wrote:

I wonder. My guess is that if someone gets sucked up by a tornado in an empty field, it would carry them quite a ways until it eventually sucked something else up that violently collides with them. Or it may violently throw them to the ground and kill them.

Good question though. Definitely one for someone who studies natural disasters.

That would be my worry, too!! I really don't know what I'd do.

I'd rather just go to Cedar Point.