When lightning struck

Have you ever been struck by lightning? It sounds preposterous… but  yes I had experienced the lightning once..yup it still sounds improbable right? Here is the story how it happened.

I think I was in 5^th standard that time and had come to my native place with my grandpa on a weekend. It was the beginning of monsoon season and there were lots of thunder and lightning were there. I had noticed a peculiar phenomenon inside our home. The lights were on but the power was off!! And the intensity of light varied along with each bolt of lightning..it was real scary you know.. most probably the earthing system was not there  I didn’t realize it then.   I had obtained a shampoo bottle from somewhere and I wanted to put water in to it so that I can make bubbles. To do this ,I had to reach the  water tap  which was near the main switch board. The bolts of lightning were constantly coming down to the earth. Still I had to do this work because I had bragged a lot about bubbles with my cousin and now wanted to show it to him.

I gathered some courage and went near the tap and started filling the shampoo bottle. When the bottle was almost half full, lightning struck………!

It was as if a hundred whips had  been lashed simultaneously against my leg. Or something like I had been run over by a road roller.. I couldn’t move my leg from the spot. I was scared to the core. Some how I managed to pull myself inside the house dragging my leg. Then started to massage my leg vigorously hoping to make it normal. Fortunately within few minutes my leg started working again. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then it started to rain very heavily..thunders subsided

I never mentioned it to anybody for a long time. What had happened actually there was lightning had somehow travelled through the main switch board and was going into ground and it took my wet leg as the path of least resistance. Wet human skin is 1000 times more conductive than dry skin. It was the most minute part of the lightening energy which had passed through my leg, as I only had temporary loss of function only for few minutes. But the experience was terrible enough, I had so many nightmares about it later. I did not see the flash of light, may be I was dazed or in shock , but I cant remember myself seeing the flash. All others events are crystal clear in my mind.

To this date, when I see a lightning, this event passes through my mind . I have been very particular not to go out during lightning  unnecessarily. They say once you get struck by lightning, chances are high that you’ll  get struck again! I ‘ve read about people who got struck repeatedly by lightning, some as many as 11 times!!  For me that one time was more than enough!!