All this week on 9NEWS Mornings, we’re highlighting incredible stories of survival … and what you can do if you find yourself in a similar situation.
It was an early August afternoon in 2014. Barb Stemple had just come back to her cabin in Grand Lake after getting ice cream with her friends. A thunderstorm had passed over a little while ago, so she looked at the sky before getting out of her car. They seemed like the usual afternoon clouds.
“I got out of my car, and it was like a bomb hit me,” Stemple said. “I was face-down in my driveway and being electrocuted, I thought ‘I’m being electrocuted. I wonder if this is what it is like to die in the electric chair.’”
She had been struck by lightning, but was fortunate, because it hit a power pole at the edge of her property and not her body directly.
After three days of pain, Stemple decided to see a doctor. That’s when she was diagnosed with hearing loss, an irregular heartbeat, dental problems, and a concussion. She had so much damage to the skin on her face that it began to peel off, layer after layer like a severe sunburn.
Dr. Phillip Yarnell with Saint Anthony Hospital and the Lightning Data Center, said while most people who are struck by lightning suffer no long-term effects, the physical injuries can be severe.
“There was a girl who was playing softball who was hit by lightning and had a hemorrhage within the brain that left her with a stroke syndrome, paralysis on one side,” Yarnell said.
Beyond the physical damage, a lightning strike can cause mental ones as well. Yarnell, who has experience treating the psychological impacts of a lightning strike, said victims can experience depression, antisocial behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Lightning Data Center is a working group of medical professionals, storm chasers and anyone else interested in lightning who study this phenomenon and its effect on society.
Lighting Data Center meetings are open to anyone who is interested in attending. They meet at Saint Anthony Hospital’s Lakewood campus the second Friday of each month from 11:45 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. in Conference Rooms E and F.
MORE INFORMATION: lightningdatacenter.org
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