A Florida teenager defied the odds twice on Monday by not only being struck by lightning during a storm but also surviving the near-lethal occurrence, according to multiple reports.
Daniel Sharkey, 17, was finishing up weed-whacking his neighbor’s yard in Altamonte Springs, Florida, so he could dodge the storm that was approaching, the teenager told WESH from his hospital bed.
"I was trying to finish up. I was about to head back to my truck, and suddenly, I woke up face down in a puddle," Sharkey said, per the Daytona Beach, Florida-based TV station.
The lightning strike "came straight through a tree," Sharkley said, per ClickOrlando.
Once Sharkey was struck, he said neighbors came over and helped him off the ground, according to WESH.
"There was no warning," the teenager said about the lightning strike, per the TV station. "There was no 'get out of the way.' It was just instantaneous."
USA TODAY attempted to contact Sharkey but was unsuccessful.
Sharkey may have only survived because the lightning didn't strike him directly, but it was close enough to make the teenager fall, witnesses told WESH. The tree near him was not so lucky as it took the brunt of the lightning strike, FOX 5 reported.
"If it was a direct hit, I probably wouldn’t be here today. I am lucky that tree was there," he told FOX 5.
Sharkey was taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Center where his family and friends remain by his side as he recovers.
“You never expect something as crazy as a lightning strike,” Sharkey told ClickOrlando. "When I first came to, I thought I might have passed out from the heat or something, but then I was like, ‘Things don’t line up. Everything hurts.’ I couldn’t really feel my extremities at that time. I couldn’t talk.”
Once released from the hospital, Sharkey said he plans to cut some more yards to earn extra summer cash.
"I mean, I’ve got 20 people that expect their grass cut, and if not there, I’m sure I’ll have a lot of annoyed customers," he said, per WESH.
The odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Although the odds of being hit are slim, about 40 million lightning strikes hit the ground in the U.S. each year, the CDC said. Being struck multiple times is even rarer as the record remains at seven times in one lifetime, the public health agency added.
Florida is considered the "lightning capital" of the U.S., with more than 2,000 lightning injuries over the past 50 years, according to the CDC.
From 2006 through 2021, there were 444 people killed by lightning strikes in the U.S., the CDC said. Men are four times more likely than women to be struck by lightning, the agency added.
The average age of an individual struck by lightning is 37 years, according to the CDC.
