Man Struck by Lightning While Trying to Catch Lightning on Camera
A Seattle man out for a walk this past Saturday stopped to film the sky in hopes of seeking out some bolts of lightning from an oncoming storm, but he got more than he bargained for when the lightning sought him out instead.
KOMO reports that Robb Montejano stopped in a field on his walk to take some video of the distant thunderstorm when he was struck by lightning. Even more amazing is that both Montejano and the cell phone apparently survived without much injury.
In his YouTube video titled " I was struck by lightning today! What have you done today?," he says:
"Just on the off-chance that I can catch lightning on film during the daytime, it would be really cool. But I don't know if it's gonna happen. I'll give it a minute here. But it would be really, really cool to see."
Eight seconds later, he was struck by lightning.
Firefighters checked out the smiling lightning victim and it appears that he's okay. When asked what it felt like, Montejano told KOMO "The electricity flowing through my body. I can't describe it. It was amazing."
The event was a phenomenon commonly known as a "bolt from the blue." Lightning can strike as far as 25 miles away from a thunderstorm, according to NOAA.
Lightning is responsible for 16 deaths in the United States so far this year — 13 victims were men and 3 were women. Lightning kills between 20 and 30 people in the country each year.
