Yard work almost turned deadly for a man hit by lightning in Georgia.
Sean O'Connor said he was raking leaves Saturday afternoon when a bolt of lightning came down and struck him in the right foot.
“I heard the loud crack and next thing I know, I was over here on the side of my driveway," said O’Connor.
At first he thought he was hit by a falling tree limb.
“When I stood up, I had blood in my mouth. I could smell burnt hair; felt like I had a bad sunburn on my leg," he said.
That’s when he realized he had been hit by lightning. He took a picture of his smoldering work boots and sent it to his wife who was not home at the time. He said the lightning strike knocked him out of his steel-toe boots.
O’Connor said his right foot is fine, but the left side of his body is in pain.
O’Connor’s wife rushed home and took him to a hospital.
“Everybody in the emergency room looked at me funny. Nobody believed (I) was struck by lightning and still there talking to them," he said.
He said doctors hooked him up to an EKG scan and realized it was pretty serious.
“They were concerned with my heart rate. It was dropping down to 40 beats per minute," O’Connor said.
He was sent home Sunday. His doctor told him now that it has happened once, it'll likely happen again.
“Out of all the lightning victims, she’s seen the majority of them end up getting struck more than once," O’Connor said.
O’Connor said he is fortunate to be alive.
“Yeah, everybody tells me I need to play the lottery tonight,” he said.
