A 19-year-old teen in Alabama was struck by lightning while watching a video on her phone.
The electric jolt, which was ushered in with a loud bang and a popping noise, left her in tears with the sensation of pins and needles in her right arm and a temporary memory loss.
Doctors have since described her as lucky, saying that if she were holding her mobile in her left hand, the shock was sure to have reached her heart.
Henderson heard a bang and a pop, then felt pins and needles in her right arm
Image credits: Scott Osborn (Not the actual photo)
“As I was watching a video, that’s when something struck. After that I heard a loud pop. After the loud pop all I heard was ringing in my ears,” Lisa Henderson told The Times Daily outlet.
According to Franklin County’s Emergency Management Agency, lightning had struck the house, sending a power surge through its mains, which then carried through Henderson’s connected charging cable.
While her pinkie finger was zapped, her mobile remains in pristine condition.
Image credits: lisa henderson
Henderson’s fiancé, Conner Welborn, who witnessed her ordeal on the evening of June 29, claimed that she had thrown her phone—still plugged into the mains—onto the bed they had been lying on before “bawling her eyes off.”
Henderson does not remember much more than seeing bolts of lightning through her tears
Seeing his girlfriend’s distress, he called for help from relatives and dialed 911.
“You know how it feels when you’re brushing with an electric toothbrush, that kind of vibration that is in your hand?” Henderson said of the experience.
Image credits: Stephen Andrews (Not the actual photo)
“It was kind of like that but stinging. The back part of my shoulder blade hurt worse than the rest of me.”
“I don’t remember walking from the back to the front of the house,’ Henderson’s account continued. “I just remember standing by the door, while I was still crying, and the lightning striking.
The strike wiped her memory temporarily
Image credits: WHNT News 19
“I was still terrified of it. I was sitting there just looking around and hearing the ambulance. All I know is I was in pain. It hurt, and I didn’t know what was going on.”
As a testimony to her confusion, she could not remember some of the most basic details of her personal life.
Image credits: WHNT News 19
“They (emergency responders) asked me about my birthday, and it took me a minute,” she recalled. “I was having trouble processing. I could understand people but was having trouble communicating with them.”
According to Welborn, Henderson’s blood pressure at the time had reached a high of 170.
Henderson credited divine intervention for her survival, saying: “I think [God] was protecting me because if not, I would probably have been electrocuted.”
“He gave me enough strength to at least throw my phone away from me.”
Lighting does strike twice in the same place—for Henderson at least
Henderson’s existence lays waste to the popular adage that lightning does not strike twice in the same place. It was in her childhood that she had her first brush with nature’s voltage.
Image credits: lisa henderson
“I was just outside,” she said to the outlet. “I wanted to play. That’s all I know. I was taken to the hospital. I remember they gave me a popsicle.”
She admitted that she could not help but see the humor, especially since she has a track record of questionable luck.
She has been texting everyone about her shocking experience
Image credits: lisa henderson
She gave another example: “I fell through my apartment floor before. I fell onto this woman’s couch. She looked at me. I looked at her. She led me out of the apartment.”
Henderson has since been texting her friends, telling them about her “shocking experience.”
She has also warned the public against using their phones during electrical storms.