Is this kid really smart, really lucky, or both?

[Darth Biscuit]

Boy rides out storm in dryer

LENOX, Iowa — Austin Miller was home watching “PBS Kids'' when the panicked phone call came from his mother.

Get in the laundry room, now, she said. There are tornadoes coming.

The 11-year-old rode out the storm Wednesday afternoon inside the clothes dryer as the twister demolished the second floor above him, the roof collapsed and debris swirled about.

“If he wouldn't have been in that laundry room, it would have come right down on him,” said the boy's mother, Jessica Miller, less than 24 hours after a tornado wrecked their home. “I'm proud of him for doing that.''

...

“I couldn't get to him,” she said. “That was the worst. That was the worst thing.”

Inside the windowless laundry room, stuff started swirling around as well.

Austin opened up the door to the dryer — it's about 1-by-1½ feet wide — and squeezed in, shutting the door behind him. As he did, some glass struck the outside of the door and shattered.

For several minutes he heard the tornado pull his house apart, the sound of glass breaking, of items falling from shelves.

Five minutes after things died down, an aunt, Jessica Wambold, came to the house to find him. Only then did he climb from the dryer.

Mother and son reunited at the home of her parents. She grabbed hold of him and hugged. “She wouldn't let go,” Austin said.

“I held on to him forever,” Jessica Miller said.

After the storm, as Austin and some friends walked around a city park across the street looking at the damage, she called him several times, just to ask if he was OK.

Damn, that kid has a hell of a story to tell...

[PanthaSan]

Wow.

I can only imagine how his mom felt knowing she couldn't get to him and how she felt when she saw him.

Talk about going from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other.

[Cat]

Terrifying. I can't imagine what that mom felt like.

[GritsRgreat]

Hate they lost their home, happy the boy is ok.

Home alone at age 11? Who does these things?

[Kettle]

Hate they lost their home, happy the boy is ok.

Home alone at age 11? Who does these things?

i became a latch key kid before that age. it was only a couple hours a day though.

[Darth Biscuit]

Yeah, I was home alone some after school at that age... both my parents worked and if my dad was on day shift, no one was home when I got off the bus.

We don't leave our 11 year old home alone... we'll leave him if the 15 year old is there with him.

[Panthers128]

I wouldn't say he's smart or lucky. He followed a simple order from his mother that was based on the common knowledge that you can survive events like fires and tornadoes in sturdy and enclosed items like refrigerators and washing machines.

Good thing he actually answers the phone and listens to his parents.

[neverlosethefeeling]

Wow that's crazy. Good for him for being able to think on his feet.

[Purity-Control]

He could of always tied himself to the gas line then floated in the air as the twister passed by.