Boy survives lightning strike
An Adelaide boy has spoken about his brush with death after a lightning bolt struck the ground less than a metre from his feet.
Fifteen-year-old Damon, from Hallett Cove in Adelaide’s south, had dashed outside to rescue his terrified cat Angel from yesterday’s thunderstorms when near-tragedy struck.
He went out out the front of his house to usher the cat back inside for safety when a lightning bolt crashed into the ground near his feet.
“I was standing in sort of the centre of the lawn and it just zapped me,” Damon told 7News.
“You could hear the big bang, the really bright flash.”
He ran back inside and an ambulance was called.
“My little brother said I was standing there for a few seconds dazed, then sprinted back into the house… I had a headache, sore feet and had a stomach ache a few minutes after.”
After spending several hours in the Flinders Medical Centre last night getting heart and blood tests, doctors gave him a clean bill of health.
“They (doctors and nurses) were saying it is a one in 200,000 (chance)... of a house getting struck by lightning, and one in 2million of a person getting struck by lightning,” Damon said.
While Damon had the day off school today, he is expecting many of his friends to be asking about the lightning bolt when he returns.
“I’m not looking forward to telling everyone the same story over and over and over again,” he said.
About 170,000 lightning strikes lit up the sky across South Australia during the thunderstorm, which brought down trees and cut power to tens of thousands of homes.
