National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Open Window Results in Strike

 

I was working as a home. I am a nurse in Nashville. In May 1985, I was bent over my patient, who was sitting in a chair next to an open window, as I drew his blood. One of those sudden violent early summer t'storms was brewing.

There was a loud crash outside the window and I saw the reflection of the light from behind me reflected in the lenses of my glasses. I felt a peculiar sensation, but I didn't realize at first what had happened. The patient's wife screamed and said she saw an orange light that went around the patient and me as well as seeming to go through us. I did not have an awareness of that and I don't think I understood the seriousness of what had happened until later that day. I do remember that after I rather quickly applied a bandaid on the venipuncture site, I practically ran out the door!

I didn't realize until months later two interesting outcomes: one, that watches would no longer work for long on me, unpredictably losing 10-20 minutes and becoming unreliable. At first I kept thinking I was buying watches that were too inexpensive. It took a couple years to realize it wasn't the watches, but was me that was the problem!

The other outcome was a noticeable increase in my intuition/psychic abilities. This is not something I previously had interest in and definitely not something I was looking for. I have always been a very private person and didn't want to know things about other people, but I found myself somehow knowing things about folks I didn't know well. For example, that one woman was having an affair with an employee, whom I had never met. (I was horrified when that thought, which I had quickly dismissed, turned out to be true!)

Six or eight years later, I was on the phone, at home, Thanksgiving weekend. A friend was sitting on the sofa a few feet away. This was during one of those gentle autumn rains. I saw lightning in the distance and quickly began to end the conversation when I felt an odd sensation in my head, like when you pop a green English pea between your teeth (not painful, just odd), and the arm holding the phone straightened involuntarily. My friend stated she saw a white light go from the phone into my ear as my arm straightened. The phone was destroyed although the answering machine was not.

My well pump has been struck twice by lightning since then, which I hope is a coincidence. I have a VERY healthy respect for lightning these days, as you can well imagine!! I've always been intrigued by the stories of other lightning strike survivors and am grateful my effects were minimal. Thanks for a chance to share my story. I never forget how lucky I am and give thanks each time I tell it.