White was responding to a call as the storm system neared his community when the tornado picked the apparatus and flipped it several times before it was dropped upside down in the Coosa River.
White -- who was wearing a seat belt -- was able to escape through a broken window and swim to safety.
"I saw the tornado coming," White told the newspaper. "I turned left and tried to outrun it. I got a quarter-of-a-mile down the road and the tornado hit me."
He estimates that the tornado took him and the truck more than 100 yards before it landed in the river.
"I grabbed hold of the steering wheel and laid down in the seat," he said.
White escaped the ordeal practically unscathed, sustaining only a black eye and soreness from bouncing around in the truck.
"I am thankful to God I survived," he said.
The tornado was part of string of deadly storms that left more than 300 people dead in seven southern states.
