A South African woman says she saved her husband’s life “by the grace of God,” after he was struck by lightning, according to IOL.
“Suddenly, I heard the most incredible noise,” Gwen McKechnie says. “And when I looked to where Eric had been standing, on the other side of the car, he was gone.”
So the woman did the only thing she knew to do: “I got down on my knees and I started praying, just asking the Lord for guidance and help.”
Gwen incorrectly administered CPR as cars stopped all around them and men and women began to pray.
“And then I don’t know how, but he came back,” Gwen said.
Lightning strikes kill about 24,000 people each year, striking an additional 240,000 more who survive, according to Live Science.
“For most victims, it is not the unforgettable horror of an agonizing ordeal that haunts them — many can’t even recall the incident itself; it’s the mysterious physical and psychological symptoms that emerge, often long after their immediate wounds have healed and doctors have cleared them to return to their normal routines,” The Week’s Ferris Jabr writes.
“But nothing is normal anymore. Chronic pain, memory trouble, personality changes, and mood swings can all follow an encounter with lightning, leaving friends and family members confused, while survivors, grappling with a fundamental shift in identity, feel increasingly alienated by the incomprehensible nature of their condition,” Jabr reports.
When you’re struck, “A lot of your routine — where did you put your keys, how did you file this, the multitasking stuff — pieces are missing out of it,” Dr. Mary Ann Cooper says. Cooper is the director of the Lightning Injury Research Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Their friends don’t come around anymore. The (lightning victims) don’t understand jokes, they’re socially inappropriate. All of those filters are kind of gone.”
But for the McKechnies, Eric’s survival is a miracle.
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