Chaser Shares Twister Video That Nearly Took His Life in Illinois

Storm chasers have to live on the edge in the hope of catching footage of the next great storm. For one chaser, one wrong decision led to an encounter with a huge Illinois twister and it nearly cost him his life, but he's shared new video that explains what went wrong and what he would do different now.

I have a lot of respect for storm chaser Chris Riske (aka High Risk Chris). As of this writing he has more than 138,000 subscribers on YouTube. He just shared new video today (July 4) of the Illinois tornado that changed his life. It was a powerful twister that struck near Lewistown, Illinois in 2023. This was Chris' position as he chased the tornado as he was between Macomb and Lewistown.

This is what Chris was seeing from his car as the tornado approached.

One of the locals yelled at Chris to get away from it, but he didn't listen. What Chris did not know is that this twister was much larger than it looked from his vantage point and it was heading toward him. He said that he made a crucial (and wrong) decision to head east to try and get ahead of the tornado instead of fleeing to the north. It was only a few minutes later that Chris had this view. It was a silo that had been destroyed by the tornado and it was on his car.

He said that the silo might have saved his life as it shielded him from part of the twister as it passed, but his car still rolled over three times before it came to rest. This is what Chris' car looked like after the tornado.

Chris said in his new video that he felt pressure to perform after missing footage from a tornado just a few days prior to the one that nearly killed him. He said that this close call has affected his decision making ever since. I highly recommend anyone that chases or is considering it to watch his new video as it includes many teachable moments and words of caution. Very thankful that he learned his lesson and is now using what happened to him to hopefully prevent another chaser from becoming part of a tragedy.