Friday, August 25, 2006

Lucky escape for lightning victim

A Staffordshire man has escaped serious injury after being struck by lightning.
Alistair Fellows, 43, from Stretton in Burton-on-Trent, had stepped out of his van during a storm in Tutbury when the bolt struck him.

Mr Fellows said felt nothing at the time, his arm only beginning to swell five hours later.

The experience has caused Mr Fellows to reflect on the close calls which have dogged him over the years.

From the age of 12 until last Thursday, when the lightning struck, he has had four lucky escapes with electricity.

As a boy he suffered a shock as he pulled a plug from a socket, and twice in his 20s he narrowly escaped injury - once when he sliced through the live cable of his electric lawnmower, and again when he hacksawed through a shed cable he did not realise was live.

Mr Fellows also broke his skull twice in his teens.

He also told the BBC that, in 1990, he had to go to hospital to have a toothbrush extracted from his ear after he fell in the shower. "That was embarrassing," he said.

No serious problems occurred from 1992 until 2004, when Mr Fellows was seriously injured when his car was hit by a lorry.

What the BBC story doesn't tell you is that the reason Mr Fellows felt nothing when hit by lightning is that it hit him on his already paralysed arm.

Lucky man.

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