There’s a 2 p.m. press conference today starring State Trooper Ira Promisel, who survived the terrifying experience of being caught in yesterday’s tornado that ripped through the Saw Mill River Valley.

I got in touch with Promisel, 38, earlier today. He said the tornado lifted his 5,000-pound patrol car into the air twice before it landed about 10 feet away.

“”it was wild, definitely wild,” Promisel told me.

He said he had just finished a meal at a Wendy’s restuarant around 3:50 p.m. when the weather started to turn for the bad. “It stated getting very dark, very quickly and I started seeing debris fyling around me,” he said. “I acutaly never saw the funnel cloud from the outside.”

Suddenly, he said, “the car lifted up, turned upside down and the car then crashed onto the curb with the passenger’s side being crushed.and it was turned a little bit while it was on the ground and it picked up again and landed on all four tires with the front end perpendicular to where it originally was.”

Promisel said that the pressure of the tornado made him feel as if he were under water. He said if he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt he would’ve died.

The whole event took about 10 seconds but seemed like a lifetime, he said. Some alert bystanders, inlcuding some Con Edison crewman pulled him out of the wreck. The patrol was totaled. Promisel suffered minor scrapes and bruises.

He’s taking today off from work.