Survivor Story: Rachel

Struck Twice, Walking Outside

I've had two incidents of lightening hits. The first one happened when I was a teenager walking home from school with a mate in a town at the edge of the Thetford Forest, UK.  We had an umbrella between us. The lightning struck the power line in front of us and kind of came out towards us.  We were in the road between two rows of trees.  The next thing I remember we were both getting up off the ground on opposite sides of the road.  I was sick.  Umbrella was gone!

The second time I was about 33 years old. The lightening hit my house when I was in it with my baby and blew the chimney out across the road.  My battery powered door bell rang constantly.  Very scary as we live in the middle of nowhere and the phone line was dead and my mobile phone signal died too.

Fortunately, Rachel wasn't permanently injured during the outdoor strike and was not on a corded phone, touching other electric appliances or plumbing during the indoor strike.