A Canadian man is going viral after a photo of him mowing his yard during a tornado was shared online.
The photo shows Theunis Wessels of Alberta, Canada trying to maintain his lawn as an enormous cloud funnel is going by his house. The photo, which was taken and shared by Theunis’ wife Cecilia, went viral on Twitter and was picked up by numerous outlets.
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“It looks much closer if you look in the photo, but it was really far away. Well, not really far, far away, but it was far away from us,” Theunis told CBC News. “I was keeping an eye on it.”
The couple, who is originally from South Africa, had never seen a tornado before, so they weren’t as panicked as most would be. Theunis needed to cut the grass that day to keep his busy schedule of his children’s sporting events in place.
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“I was watching all the time to see what it was going to do,” he told CTV. “My daughter came out and (said), ‘Dad. Dad, you have to come in,” Theunis said. “She went inside and waked my wife. My wife came out and took some pictures.”
Social media erupted at the photo, with some claiming the shot was fake, but Cecilia shared some extra photos from the day to corroborate the story. Most others kept their reaction to either scolding our push-mower-using hero or cracking jokes about his bold afternoon.
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The grass can wait … By the way any tornado can change direction at any moment
— Gary (@AskGoo) June 4, 2017
Not goin’ down with an untidy yard!
— Tony Wall (@Monet_TC) June 4, 2017
For those wondering, the lawn was completely before Theunis went inside, and he says it “looks nice.”
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