An En-lightning Experience

It has been almost 13 years since I got hit by lightning and evertime I read this story, I get goosebumps. It reminds me about this horrible day and how it changed my life.

Taken from my Uncle Paul's website:
http://www.lifebetweenlivesny.com/NDE.html


An En-lightning Experience -- Paul's Story July 17, 1998.

As the storm approaches from a distance there is talk of delaying the swim meet. We are all disappointed. Do we really need to follow the ten minute rule and delay the meet for ten minutes because of the distant rumble of thunder? The thunder seems so far away. It hardly seems a threat. As the sky grows darker I watch the clouds approach from the other side of the lake. A giant bolt of lightning, way on the other side of the lake lights up the sky. Orion, our little three year old, asks to go home. "It’s OK, RyRy. Don’t worry" I say. A few minutes later there is another huge bolt of lightning, closer this time but still at the other end of the lake. Orion becomes more insistent. "Go home Daddy, go home!" he pleads with me. It is getting darker and the clouds fill the sky. The meet was delayed again and I decide to take Orion to the car. As I climb the hill to the car, my wife Lindsey and Nicole, our fifteen year old niece visiting us from Arizona, gather up the beach chairs and cooler and follow.

I set Orion down in the street next to the car in order to unlock and open the door. I pick him up and place him on the front seat. Leaving the door ajar I go around to the back of the car to load the trunk. Nicole comes up behind me with the cooler and a chair as I lift the tailgate.

As we begin to load the car there is an incredible explosion and searing flash of white light. It is as if a bomb has gone off. There is no warning, no thunder, no flashes, just a huge explosion. And then it starts. I an being electrocuted. My feet and legs begin to vibrate. My whole body goes rigid. And the sound! A roaring buzz fills my body as the electricity climbs up through me into my chest and arms. I feel completely helpless. The ground is alive with current that is killing me. I can’t move. I can’t run. There is no place to go. I cannot escape. I feel my feet vibrating in my sandals as the lightning comes up out of the street and climbs over the rubber soles into my legs. It is the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. Every muscle in my body tenses and cramps. Like thousands of Charlie horses all at once. My car keys fly out of my hands, my hat pops off my head, and my glasses are blown off my face.

I think to myself "Will it ever stop?" I rage against the relentless charge of energy invading my body. "NO! Get out of my body!" I scream in my mind , as I fight with all my strength. I grow weaker as I bounce rigidly, upright on the pavement. It feels like an eternity, I wonder if it will ever end. Will it stop or will I die? I don’t know which will come first. And then stiff like a statue I am thrown backwards. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Nicole, in the same upright position falling backwards too. There is no way to brace myself from the fall. My muscles don’t respond and it is all happening too fast anyway. I feel my head bouncing on the street as I am thrown down. The pain of my head hitting the pavement is nothing compared to the searing pain of my convulsing body. Later, eye witnesses say we actually flew about six feet in the air like missiles.

Then the rain begins. A few drops and then torrents of rain mixed with hail. Some call it a white out. Everything seems to be in slow motion. People are walking to their cars stunned by the blast, checking to see if their children are alright. I feel invisible. "They don’t know I just got hit by lightning. They don’t know I am dying." Then I try to move but can’t. One arm moves slightly. There is no response in my Legs. Some parts of me are numb and some are in intense pain.

I moan at first, my body still jerking. The moans grow into howls and then, at last, words form and I scream for help. A figure comes toward me reaching out. "Don’t touch him" someone shouts, and he runs away for fear of being electrocuted by me. I still can’t move. Then another person approaches. He checks me and then Nicole as we lay in the street only a few feet apart. Someone brings a blanket. Others try to call for help but their cell phones don’t work because of the intensity of the storm.

Then Lindsey, comes over. She touches my head and tells me to pray. "Call the angels. Call the angels" she says. My mind is rushing "Nicole is OK. What about Orion? Check Orion!" My legs won’t move. And my arm, it doesn’t work either. Oh God, what is happening? The rain is heavy now. I am getting wetter and wetter.

Lindsey is hit too, at the same time as Nicole and me. Her legs sore, she is limping and her arm is burned. Thank God I got Orion in the car just seconds before the explosion. I am too wet and the water in the street is getting deeper and deeper. With help I sit up but am unable to stand. Nicole and I are carried to the car, out of the rain, at last. We wait for help. The police arrive soon after the calls are made but the ambulance is taking forever to get here.

Reunited with Lindsey and Orion, we are all crying and in shock. Nicole is still not talking. When we ask her questions she can only cover her face and cry. Lindsey is saying she was carried by the angels. All we can do is cry and thank God we are alive. Still waiting for the ambulance. I am starting to feel my body again. Now my head hurts as the bump swells. The cop is sitting in the front seat with Lindsey, drenched through, taking names and addresses for his report. He goes out into the rain again to get me an ice pack for my head.

After 45 minutes the ambulances finally arrive. They do their triage and put Lindsey and Orion in one ambulance and me and Nicole in another. The road to the local hospital is closed as some trees, felled by the storm, block the way. They take an alternate route to a small country hospital in Warwick, NY.

During the ride I find I can move my arm again. What a relief. And the feeling in my legs begins to return. I’ll be able to walk! Every time I ask Nicole how she was all she can do is cry. She still can’t talk.

We are taken into the ER, Nicole on the stretcher, I in a wheel chair and Lindsey in one too with Ryan in her lap. They take us to separate rooms. My chest is shaved and electrodes are attached for the EKG. They take blood and urine too. We are in shock. We move between sobbing and laughing, cracking morbid jokes and thanking God. Lindsey is ordering deep dish pepperoni pizza from the ER doctor and I’m walking around with a blanket over my shoulders saying I’m the savior. (Linsdey is a Vegetarian)

What the hell is happeneing to us? Why is it happening? Will we ever be the same again? What are the effects of being hit by lightning? Are we ok? Are we alive? Finally Lindsey and I are able to hug. The tears flow. Orion is alive, Jon-Paul, our eleven year old son, is spared, we still have each other. But, Nicole, is she going to be alright? After J.P. talked to her a bit she begins to talk. Words at last!

We have to call Nicole’s mom at work. "We are OK; we are in the hospital; we were hit by lightning!" I tell my sister. She is speechless. She drops the phone, her boss picks it up and puts us on the speaker phone. We need authorization to take blood and run an IV on Nicole. I get on the phone with Lynette trying to reassure her. We got hit by lightning but we are OK. "Are you sure?!" She asks, dumbfounded. I can’t talk anymore. Lynette gets the details from the nurse and makes arrangements to catch the next flight out.

The doctor is explaining that the lightning can make our hearts beat irregularly or make them stop. It also drives certain elements out of the muscles causing muscle damage and possibly overloading the kidneys. They have found blood in Lindsey’s urine and want to do more tests. Nicole goes to the bathroom but forgets to fill the sample cup with urine. She will have to try again. My IV is about done and now they want to do another. I just want to go home. They really don’t know what to do with us so they decide to discharge us. The television news teams are waiting for us. We make the evening news and the front page of most of the newspapers.

Dazed and confused we return to the sight of the lightning strike to retrieve our car. We realize we are in no shape to drive and have friends take us home. The next day we realize we are in pretty bad shape. Still in shock and sore everywhere. It is hard to move. It feels like I ran a marathon and then got run over by a steam roller.

I call my insurance company to report the emergency room visit and they insist we go back to a better hospital immediately. "You never should have been released! Your heart can stop any time in the first twenty-four hours after being hit by lightning." If my health insurance company is insisting we go back to the emergency room immediately I know we are in rough shape. Three doctors and two emergency medical clinics refuse to see us. They just don’t know what to do for lightning strike victims. Finally, a hospital with a doctor who has treated lightning cases agrees to admit us and off we go.

It has been days since we were discharged. The initial injuries are healing but we are noticing other long term affects. My upper back is in chronic pain. We all have substantial short term memory loss. We forget what we are doing, people's names even where we are or how to get home. I stop to put gas in the car and wonder why the tank is already full. My son reminds me that I just stopped a few minutes earlier and filled it up. I have no memory of doing it. The other big after-effect we notice is sensitivity to storms and to electricity in general. I am scared to open the refrigerator door or to turn on a lamp. Hours before a storm arrives I can feel it. My legs hurt like they did the day after the lightning.

Weeks have passed. My energy level is still frustratingly low and the memory loss is frightening. So many questions arise. I’m trying so hard to get back to normal these days. But, do I really want normal? What is normal anyway? Was I ever normal? What do I want this life to be? I almost lost this life.

In striving to restore some sense of normalcy in my life will the unique opportunity to make more conscious, perhaps even divinely inspired choices about how I live this new life fade as I fall into the same old routine? Or, will I make the most of it? Will I in some profound way, be guided to be or do something exceptional?

Some say I was touched by God. Others say devils were after me. I refuse to live my life in fear. Something deep inside me knows that some "good" will come of this. Although it is a traumatic experience it isn’t a disaster. No life was lost. We are not outwardly wounded or scarred. We don’t even glow in the dark. I know something is different, but, I don’t know what it is yet. Will we write a book, develop some extra sensory perception, become great healers or just be a little nutty?

"He is a changed man since he was struck by lightning" they say. But, what has changed? How has a brush with death changed me? Can I ever be the same again? Do I want to be the same? Promising myself I will change is a far cry from being changed. And that raises an important question. Did I choose this? Was it chosen for me? What am I supposed to get out of all this? These are questions I live with each day.