A pickup was struck by lightning in Florida, US, while the driver was returning home and the bus stopped working after a power failure. The moment of the malfunction, as well as the sound and flash of lightning, was recorded on video by a camera installed in the vehicle’s dashboard.
Jack Foraker said he was driving his Ford Ranger near Big Carlos Pass in Lee County when he got caught in a storm.
“I saw some people, a group of latecomers leaving the beach. And I said to myself ‘They’re the kind of people who get struck by lightning because they’re leaving the beach too late’ ‘ and moved to second place. In the end, they didn’t get struck by lightning, I was,” he told WINK-TV.
“Lightning sounded like a shotgun blast from the back of my truck. It was so scary,” he said. “My windshield wipers went off, I lost brake Hydraulics, I lost the power steering”.
The driver, who was not injured, managed to pull over the shoulder. The pickup, which covered only 6,400 km, was severely damaged. “I practically put him in the ICU,” he said. “The pickup was in the shop for 40 days while the mechanics tried to revive it,” Fokker said, adding that he was resigned to the fact that he would likely have to buy a new vehicle.
Foraker said the incident he experienced should serve as a warning to others about the danger of being struck by lightning.
“You don’t need to be afraid of sharks, you don’t need to be afraid of rays. You should be afraid of rays, because they kill a lot of people here in Florida,” he concluded.
