156: What Remains
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From W.B. E.C., Chicago, and Public Radio International, it's his American life and my re-glass. A few years back, here in Chicago, we had some unusual weather, and 18 people were struck by lightning in one month. Seventeen of them survived, and I set out to interview as many of them as would talk to me. The ones with the worst injuries remembered nothing of what happened to them, but the rest all described the moment they were hit in very similar terms. Mike Bergeron and Larry Wilson were on the golf course under an umbrella with two other guys when the lightning struck. All I saw was just a very bright, white flash. I think I remember a white light, and when the lightning struck I felt no pain. And I can remember what I think I remember is just, you know, getting knocked backward. My brain saying, "Hey, you got to stand up," and nothing else would really respond. And I was trying to call friends over. I remember that, but I couldn't speak. And it was like things kind of went in slow motion. Out of the corner of my eye, I remember seeing Tony kind of falling backward. I can remember seeing Larry falling, but it wasn't like somebody just tripping and falling on the ground. It was like it took them one or two minutes before they actually hit the ground. There's a terror to lightning. Victims say they were surrounded by friends and family, but when the bolt came, they were suddenly alone, trapped in their own bodies. The natural world turned supernatural. Georgina Davies was at a company picnic, and it just started to drizzle. She never saw the blast, she didn't suspect lightning. She says she thought it was the end of the world. Right before all this happened, it was like everybody just shut the sound. And completely out. You couldn't hear nothing. You couldn't move. It was like total silence around the world in that area where I was at. And then I started hearing like humming, like bees or something, or like a bunch of flies going zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And it felt like something was going to happen, but I didn't know what. And then I looked over and I saw Sylvia screaming, and I saw her mouth open, but I couldn't hear her at first. It was like everything was shut out for like the, I don't know if it was seconds or minutes or it could have been a second. And I didn't know where I was at. That's what it was like in the moment lightning struck. But in the moments after, the days and weeks after, it all started to look different. When something happens to you that is so big, so biblical, you definitely start to think about why. And most of the survivors I talked to came to the same conclusion. It was not just a coincidence where the lightning hit. My own opinion, I think that's during this all the world, something. They said God is trying to tell us them, God don't try, God is telling us something. God will try to do nothing, He's telling us something to be where.
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