One day after it was pointed out that we live in the most dangerous state in the country for lightning strikes, well, lightning struck. Nick Carman, a 25-year-old from Cooper City, was sitting in a tree yesterday at about 1 p.m. when he was struck and sent sideways from the blast.
The Sun Sentinel quoted a neighbor who witnessed it and was unnerved.
"It looked like he was in shock, he was limping and he looked white as a ghost," Patty Sehringer told the Sentinel. "It's the loudest crack I've ever heard. It was scary. My dog peed on the floor, it was that crazy."
Even still, both Carman and Sehringer said they didn't think the bolt had directly hit Carman because if it had, he'd be expired. It would have also made him the seventh Florida lightning strike fatality this year after only four in all of 2013.
Danger aside, though, there's just something about hanging out in trees in Cooper City. Last year -- during this same month, no less -- two teenagers from the same city made their way up a tree during a rainstorm, only to be jarred from the tree after it was struck by lightning.
It left then-15-year-old Stefan Marton with a spinal fracture, and unconscious for at least 10 seconds. "It's like a big boom, a flash, and kind of like throwing a stun grenade at you, you can't see anything, you can't do anything, you're helpless," he told NBCMiami last year. "Everything just went blank and I woke up in the ambulance and I was like this actually happened. I would describe it as a big mistake. I should have just not went outside."
Just last month two men working at a Pompano Beach car dealership were struck by lightning during a light rain storm and one of them died days later.
Can we just stay inside?
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