Michael Welch was midshift into his job at KFC in Newcastle, Okla., on Monday afternoon when he noticed hail pounding the parking lot outside the restaurant.

Then, as he looked into the distance, he saw the wall cloud of an enormous tornado rotating in front of him.

“It was very large and very fast,” he said.  “I could see debris flying all over.”

The 24-year-old cook grabbed his HTC cell phone and dashed into the parking lot and started recording video. “Probably not the best thing to do, but I did it.”

Most of his coworkers took shelter, but his manager stayed at the door while he filmed, Welch said.

“Oh, my God!” he screams on his video -- seen by thousands on NBC News and YouTube -- as the tornado, which killed at least 24 people and injured scores more in the area, passes. 

He said an F4 tornado that hit his house in Blanchard on May 24, 2011, helped alleviate his fear.

“I think that gave me the courage to go ahead and go outside,” he said. “The power of the funnel cloud was amazing."

He said he had no idea a storm was coming until he saw it with his own eyes.

But now, his YouTube video showing a street-level view of the massive tornado plowing through Newcastle and Moore stands as an iconic record of the day’s event.

“I’ve talked to so many people today I can’t even count ,” he said.

Related:

• Monster tornado deals death, destruction in Oklahoma
• Children found drowned in tornado-flattened school
• Video: Timelapse – nightmare in the suburbs
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• What you're seeing: Videos, images from ground
• Six of the worst twisters in U.S. history
• Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past, future
• How to help tornado victims

Scott Shaw / The Plain Dealer / Landov

Charles Ramsey talks to members of the media as well-wishers congratulate him in Cleveland on Monday.

Chuck Norris has nothing on Chuck Ramsey.

The Cleveland dishwasher kicked in a door to rescue a woman held captive for a decade — and then charmed his way into America's heart with his colorful candor.

Twitter spawned a #chuckramsey hashtag, and musical remixes of his enthusiastic TV interviews were cropping up on YouTube. Actress Mia Farrow and comedian Patton Oswalt proclaimed themselves fans.

In a Tuesday interview with NBC station WKYC-TV, Ramsey shrugged off the "hero" label, but said he knew one thing about himself.

"I'm the definition of a man, bro," he said.

Ramsey lives on Seymour Avenue near the house where police say Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held against their will by former bus driver Ariel Castro and his brothers Pedro and Onil.

Although he's a fan of McDonald's — he name-checked the fast-food giant several times in interviews, and they tweeted that they'll "be in touch" — Ramsey has worked in more upscale restaurants in recent years.

"He was fantastic, always upbeat, always willing to help," said Peter D'Amato, general manager of Moxie in Beachwood, Ohio. "He was a fun guy who played basketball with the crew on his days off."

The "jack-of-all-trades" left Moxie's in 2007 to work for a restaurant and bakery co-owned by William Davis, who recalled how he helped him move house and was always lending a hand to the charity thrift shop next door.

He also remembered the unfiltered story-telling that Ramsey put on display after the rescue. "Actually, we were amazed at how censored he was in the TV interview," Davis laughed.

When his eatery closed, Ramsey wound up at Hodge's, where the owner said he could handle any kitchen crisis.

"He's calm in the face of crazy and hectic things going on," Chris Hodgson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Crazy and hectic would certainly describe the events of Monday night on Seymour Avenue, when Berry made her break for freedom, interrupting Ramsey's meal of McDonald's takeout.

"This girl is kicking the door and screaming," he told WKYC-TV.

"So I go over there ... and I say, 'Can I help? What’s going on?' And she says, 'I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been in this house a long time. I want to leave right now.'"

Ramsey said he helped her kick in the door so she could climb out with her child, and then he called 911.

"Hey bro, check this out," he told the dispatcher, referring to Berry as "this broad" and dropping a bunch of profanities along the way.

Slideshow: Missing women found alive in Cleveland

Tony Dejak / AP

A daring escape and a dramatic 911 call led to the rescue of three women who allegedly had been held captive for years inside a home in Cleveland, Ohio.

Launch slideshow

As he tried to explain the bizarre situation to the uncomprehending operator, Ramsey seemed to run out of patience. And when the dispatcher suggested he had provided the incorrect address, Ramsey bristled.

"I'm smarter than that, bro!" he retorted.

After the police arrived and whisked away Berry and the other two women, Ramsey told his story over and over to the media, the blow-by-blow paired with some deductive reasoning and a primer on race relations.

"Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms," he told a reporter at the scene.

"Something's wrong here. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. Either she's homeless or she's got problems. That's the only reason she run to a black man."

The next day, Ramsey reflected that he didn't have much choice but to get involved, because that's how he was raised.

"My father would have whupped the hell out of me if I cowered out," he said.

He only wishes he had the opportunity to act sooner, making somewhat ominous references to a coroner and white sheets.

"We would have handled that, bro," he told WKYC.

With the clock still ticking on his 15 minutes, Ramsey said he was coping well with his newfound fame, rankled only by one piece of unfinished business with his neighbor, Ariel Castro.

"I wanna get my hands on him," he said. "And then I’ll be all right."

Related:

Five missing-child cases with happy endings

This story was originally published on Tue May 7, 2013 4:10 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- Police say they are questioning two teenagers in connection with an online video of two young girls being forced to fight in a New York City park early last month.

Police began investigating after NBC 4 New York's report earlier this week about the video, which was originally posted on YouTube and then on the website Gothamist. It showed two children being urged to slap and hit one another, while older people in the background jeer and egg the girls on.

The mother of the 7-year-old girl in the black coat -- who is seen crying and walking away at the end of the video -- went to police after recognizing her daughter in a news report. Investigators said the teenage sister of the other girl in the video, the 6-year-old girl in the white coat, instigated the fight.

More news from NBCNewYork.com

Police said the 17-year-old sister apparently felt disrespected when the 12-year-old sister of the girl in the black coat accidentally bumped into an older teen while picking up candy that had been thrown on the ground at Edgar Allan Poe Park in the Bronx a week prior to the filmed fight.

The forced battle happened over the Christmas to New Year break at the Edgar Allan Poe Park on the Grand Concourse, police said. The 12-year-old sister tried to intervene, according to police and a witness, but she was held back by the older teens.

After returning home from speaking with detectives Thursday, the mother of the 7- and 12-year-old girls said only to NBC 4 New York, "Stop cyberbullying."

The two teens were speaking with detectives Thursday. It was unclear what charges they could face.

PHILADELPHIA - Cell phone video of a naked man literally stopping traffic in the Kensington section of Philadelphia has people wondering who he is and why he was running around in the buff.

The minute-plus long video, which was shot in November but posted to YouTube Thursday, contains not only the nudity but also profanity. It starts with the unidentified naked man standing on the front bike rack of a SEPTA Route 3 bus stopped under the Market Frankford El near the Tioga stop. The man then puts his boxer shorts on his head and calmly steps off the bumper and away from the bus.

Lou Luciano, a barber at Elvin's Major League Barber Shop, saw the fracas outside and began shooting.

"Do you think I’m going to miss that," Luciano mused.

Luciano says the incident happened in November.

More news from NBCPhiladelphia

The video, which had more than 4,000 views, was removed from Facebook at some point Thursday. It then wound up on YouTube. (WARNING: Video is not suitable for work and could be disturbing to some viewers.)

It all seems over until the man notices the cameraman and darts towards Luciano.

"He starts chasing me so I start running," Luciano said.

The naked man eventually stops the chase and begins to walk off.

Police say they eventually took the man into custody but had no information about if he was charged.

Luciano tried to keep the whole thing in perspective.

A Texas police officer has been fired after he was recorded on video threatening a teen and using profane language.

Disraeli Arnold, an officer in Hurst, Texas, was recorded in November running to assist an officer as he subdued a teenager, ultimately kneeing the teen in the back of the head while yelling and threatening him.

The teen's mother, Kelly Pope, didn't object to her son being arrested, just the force used to take the teen into custody.

"He [her son] knows that he handled it badly at first, that he should have been a little more cooperative. But, you know, the second officer -- there was no reason for it," Pope said in November. "He (Arnold) comes up at a jolting sprint, kneed him in the back of the head and, as you can see on the video, he says, 'If you move I'm going to [expletive] kill you.'"

For more, visit NBCDFW.com

While the teen was in custody and being escorted to a police car, Arnold then paraded in front of the teen's friend, who was recording the arrest, and said, "You got it on tape? Arnold, 654!"

Using the video as evidence, the teen's mother filed a complaint with the Hurst Police Department that led to an internal affairs investigation. The mother said she hoped the officer would either turn in his badge or be fired.

Dashcam video released several days later showed the teen, prior to Arnold arriving at the scene, arguing with Officer Miguel Jimenez and resisting arrest -- a offense for which he was charged.

On Thursday, Hurst police said Arnold was "indefinitely suspended for violations of Hurst Police Department General Orders and Civil Service rules relating to his actions on Nov. 20, 2012" and "an internal affairs investigation was conducted for violations ... to include the unnecessary use of force, being disrespectful to a citizen, and the use of indecent, profane, or harsh language in the performance of official duties."

Despite Pope's claim of excessive force, the internal affairs investigation determined the amount of force used by Arnold was reasonable since he believed Jimenez was struggling to subdue the teen.

The investigation did find, however, that Arnold was disrespectful to a citizen and "used indecent, profane, and harsh language in the performance of his official duties, and conducted himself in a manner which brought discredit to himself and the Hurst Police Department."

"You can't help but be embarrassed -- not only for the officers that work in our department, but for anybody in the law enforcement profession," Hurst Assistant Chief Steve Niekamp said in November. "You just expect when an officer shows up, they're going to be in charge. You don't want the foul language, anything that looks like it might be overreaction. You just want to be professional, calm and in control of the scene."

Prior to the department's latest ruling, Arnold had been placed on administrative leave.

Arnold had been with the department for four years and, according to a performance assessment and disciplinary file released by Hurst police after the incident, he met or exceeded police standards in nearly every assessment. The document also noted in May, 2010, that "Officer Arnold's enthusiasm may make him overzealous at times, which can cloud his judgment when it comes to policy, procedure and tactics. Sometimes he needs to step back and see the big picture and risks involved."

Arnold has 10 days to appeal the termination.

NBC 5's Scott Gordon contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES -- An actress who said she was duped into appearing in an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests against the United States across the Muslim world lost on Friday her second legal bid to force the video off YouTube.

Denying a request by actress Cindy Lee Garcia for a court order requiring the popular online video site to remove the crudely made 13-minute clip, a federal judge found she was unlikely to prevail on her claims of copyright infringement.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald of Santa Clara, California, also canceled a December 3 hearing he had previously set for oral arguments over Garcia's request.

Garcia's lawyer, Cris Armenta, told Reuters she planned to appeal the decision.

Actress sues, says she was fooled into acting in anti-Muslim movie

The lawsuit, filed in September, names YouTube and its parent company Google Inc as defendants, along with the film's producer.

A previous motion by Garcia for a temporary restraining order against YouTube's continued posting of the video was rejected by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

Garcia's case was the first known civil litigation stemming from the video, billed as a film trailer, which depicts the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and a sexual deviant. The clip sparked a torrent of anti-American unrest in Egypt, Libya and dozens of other Muslim countries.

The outbreak of violence coincided with an attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi in September that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered blasphemous.

Google has refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others to take it down, though the company has blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries.

Copyright claim
Garcia has accused the purported filmmaker of fraud, libel and unfair business practices.

But her federal lawsuit also asserts a copyright claim to her performance in the video, titled "The Innocence of Muslims," and accuses Google of infringing on that copyright by distributing the video without her approval via YouTube.

US-based anti-Islam filmmaker, 6 others sentenced to death by Egypt court

But in a three-page ruling, the judge questioned the validity of such a claim. He held that even if she could prove a legitimate copyright interest in her film performance, she effectively relinquished her rights to producers of the film.

Fitzgerald also ruled that Garcia failed to show that she would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.

Slideshow: Anger over film spreads throughout Muslim world

Protests ignited by a controversial film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad spread throughout Muslim world.

Launch slideshow

Garcia's lawsuit identifies Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian living in the Los Angeles area, as the film's producer. His legal name has since been established to be Mark Basseley Youssef and he served time in federal prison for bank fraud.

According to the lawsuit, Youssef operated under the assumed name of Sam Bacile when he misled Garcia and other performers into appearing in an anti-Muslim film they believed was to be an adventure drama called "Desert Warrior." She claims to have since received death threats.

Man behind 'Innocence of Muslims' film sentenced to one year in prison for violating probation

"We hope that worldwide the message has been heard that Ms. Garcia was not complicit and did not voluntarily participate in this heinous piece of hate speech," Garcia's lawyer said in a statement, despite Friday's ruling against her.

Youssef was sent back to jail for a year on November 7 for probation violations stemming from his role in making the video, including his use of an alias in connection with the film.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• 66 species of coral proposed for protection by US
• College students witness murder suicide in class
• Wikileaks case: Manning asked why he didn't complain earlier
• Missouri Powerball jackpot winners revealed: 'We’re still stunned by what’s happened'
• Mystery man claims winning Powerball ticket ... in Maryland?
• Harvard latest college to accept BDSM club

Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook