Daily Mail, on Climate, 29 October 2026

3.0out of 10Minor

Arizona man was sucked into tornado Wizard of Oz style but ended up surviving

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An Arizona man was swept up by a tornado in a scene similar to one in the movie The Wizard of Oz, but miraculously survived. Artem, who didn't share his last name, told Arizona's Family that a trip to the grocery store became terrifying after he encountered a violent whirlwind in Heber. Artem says he was heading home from the grocery store while riding a bike when unexpected winds gradually progressed. Artem told Arizona's Family that the wind suddenly went from a breeze to 'something he couldn't fight.' 'The wind came and flipped me around to go the other way.

The force was just getting more and more,' Artem said. Artem then said his bicycle lifted from his hands due to the tornado. 'The next thing you know, the bike is flying; at that point, I got off the bike, it just flew out my hands,' he said. Artem told Arizona's Family that a trip to the grocery store in Heber In a shocking turn of events, an Arizona man was swept up by a tornado in a scene similar to the movie The Wizard of Oz, but miraculously survived Moments later, Artem said, the wind began throwing him around. 'Stuff was hitting me like on the back and on the neck; it threw me in the mud, and I tumbled.'

Emergency personnel rushed Artem to the hospital. Artem said he was completely covered in mud when he arrived at the hospital, where he was given a neck brace after a CT scan. Physicians told Artem that he hadn't broken any bones and he was free to go home. 'I was so sore for the first two days, and just in shock, I couldn't sleep,' Artem said. A local charity group, Amigos Brotherhood Charities, located Artem after the incident and offered to donate money that would go toward a fund for his bike, which was shattered by the twister.

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What we found (1)

The Daily Mail reports a man in Heber, Arizona who was knocked off his bike and thrown into mud by a strong whirlwind, then treated and released from hospital. In one garbled sentence it calls the trip deadly and the whirlwind lethal, though no one in the article dies and an earlier line calls the same trip terrifying.

  1. Uses a loaded word

    Minor

    “became deadly after encountering a lethal whirlwind”

    Why this matters
    The words "deadly" and "lethal" describe the trip and the whirlwind as having caused death.
    The impression it gives
    A reader may believe the whirlwind killed someone.
    The context
    Nothing in the article reports any death. The man walked out of hospital with no broken bones, and the outlet's own earlier wording of the same line calls the trip terrifying, not deadly.

    How we know

    • Elsewhere in the article“a trip to the grocery store became terrifying after he encountered a violent whirlwind”
    • Elsewhere in the article“he hadn't broken any bones and he was free to go home”

    Show it in the article

What it gets right

  • “Physicians told Artem that he hadn't broken any bones and he was free to go home.”

    The article states plainly that his injuries were limited, which lets a reader judge how serious the incident was.

  • “Artem, who didn't share his last name, told Arizona's Family”

    The article names its source and the outlet the account first came from, so the reader knows the story rests on one man's account.

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