I Was Struck By Lightning

Daniel Sharkey is a hard-working 17 year-old who was busy mowing lawns for his summer business when he was struck by lightning. He joins us live from the hospital to tell his story. What does it feel like to get struck by lightning? How far did the strike make him fly up into the air? Did he gain any super powers? All your 'struck by lightning' questions are answered in this chat.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You never know what's going to happenon this show each day. So let's
welcome to the show. Seventeen yearold Daniel Sharky. Hurrah, Daniel can
hear us, Yes, sir,there is. Daniel is live from the
hospital right now. He has nothad the best string of days here which
she got a story, I hear. We'll get into your Sabrina was able

(00:23):
to reach out and contact Daniel's mom, Kelly was nice enough to connect us
and I got to get your storyhere, Daniel. So let's let's get
started. You got struck by lightning, and yeah, I mean I've never
been struck by lightning, nor ifI talked to anybody wh's ever been struck
by lighting So I've actually been veryclose to it once, and I was

(00:45):
incredibly scared. Was getting struck bylightning anything like you had imagined it prior
to that, because I'm sure youthought about that before. No, because
I didn't know I was struck bylightning. I was just I was I
was outside, I was doing someartwork. I have a small lung hair
company, like just doing some workin the summer for some neighbors. And
I saw the storm that was approaching, and we have lightning sirens at the

(01:07):
local park, and so they hadn'tgone off yet, so I felt confident
to be outside. And then allof a sudden I woke up face down
on the ground. Wow. Sothis knock you out cold, just completely
out. Wow. All right,so you're sitting there, did you have
anything in your hands that maybe wouldhave like attracted the lightning strike or like
I was totally a weed whacker.I was like a string trimmer. Uh

(01:30):
huh noted, get well, getfar away from those So are you are
you whacking a lot? I wasconsidering it maybe for the future, zero
weeds, okay, whatever, Allright, Daniel, where whereabouts on this
lawn where you buy like a treeor like just kind of give us the
lay of the land. Yeah,so there, it's probably about a quarter

(01:51):
acre a lot, and there's likea group of like three trees. And
I was string trimming like right atthe base of one of the trees,
so that that's like it likely hitthe tree and then bounced into me,
because you can see like a crackdown the length of the tree where it
exploded out of the tree. Wow. I guess would be kind of to
your benefit like hawd it struck youdirectly, it might be a completely different
story. Yeah, I've heard differingopinions on this. You know. Some

(02:15):
people have said that the tree attractedit, and if I wasn't near a
tree, I would find completely Butother people have said, you know,
if I wasn't near the tree wouldhave hit me directly, and I would
likely not survive the direct hit.Wow. So did you hear did you
hear a sound? Did you hearany or you just simply went from weed
whacking by this tree to waking upface down in the grass. Well,

(02:37):
I mean it's you know, lighttravels faster than sound, so the actual
you know, lightning strike was overbefore the sound of the lightning strike started.
Yeah, bizarre, So it wasit was just instant. And according
to a neighbor who was watching outof her window, I went flying.
Oh wow, really, so yougot somebody watched you get struck by lightning?

(03:00):
Yes, yes, they were.They were in their their their living
room watching out the window. Andapparently I went flying before somebody was just
watching you weed whack. Yeah,just getting all the weeds or something like
that. Yeah, he was creatinga little sidebar very impressive. When I
was seventeen, I did not havemy own small company and was you know,
doing stuff for my future. Soyeah, you were already on you

(03:23):
know, ahead of the game,and then you have and if it wasn't
for her, was she the firstperson to like run over and make sure
you were okay? Or what happenednext? Most most of the neighbors are
a lot of the neighbors are retiredor either work from home, so they're
just watching outside their windows constantly.So within probably the people these people don't
have any sort of entertainment seventeen yearold weed whacking boy. Yes, So

(03:50):
within about a maybe thirty seconds orfive different households were outside. Wow okay,
which was definitely to my ben fithaving them immediately able to render aid.
So they're rushing over to your yourface down on the lawn, you
must be just absolutely dumbfounded and confusedas to what had just happened to you.

(04:13):
Did you feel anything? Yeah,So I was trying to scream for
help because even though I logically knewthat they would find me immediately because they're
very very obviously around, I'm stilltrying to scream for help. And at
this point it starts raining, becauseit wasn't raining yet at all, man,
but then it suddenly started pouring,and then there's more lightning strikes that

(04:35):
were very close as well, andso people, some people want to move
me into a garage, and thensome people are like, well, we
shouldn't move him, and you know, YadA, YadA, YadA. And
then eventually someone called my parents whothey live around the corner, so they
came over to render aid. Theygot there before EMS did, and then

(04:56):
right just after they pulled up waswhen the first fire truck got there.
So is it hard to remember likewhat you were feeling in that moment or
was there like a feeling in yourbody like tingling or anything felt strange to
you. I couldn't move any ofmy extremities. It's it felt like like
like a lucid dream where like youknow you're conscious, but you can't do
anything. Oh that's a nightmare.And so and everything was tingling, and

(05:20):
it's like, you know every muscleinside your body, electricity causes every muscle
to contract, Like my chest isstill sore and I still feel very sore.
And they said that could go onfor like a week or so.
No way so your whole body tensedup immediately when this happened. Wow.
Yeah, the electricity just caused everymuscle to just immediately tense. I'm sure
you've learned a lot since this incident, lighting the expert on lightning strikes,

(05:45):
because everybody's had to pretty much explainto you every little thing that's happened to
your body in that moment. Yeah, everyone's been asking. You know,
you posted friends and family and they'reall like, oh, what was it?
Like? What was this? Whatwas that? So I've seen in
the pass and I'm guessing maybe notthe case because it hit the tree,
but like, did you do youhave like a scar anywhere in which the

(06:06):
lightning you can see burn marks?I had some burn marks on my neck
and shoulder, and there were someon my forearms, but they're not particularly
visible. Now. Wow, okay, it's the aftermath. What yeah,
I mean, obviously you're in thehospital. It's been a few days,
if not longer. What happened onMonday. It's stole only been like thirty

(06:27):
six hours. Okay, but inthirty six hours, I got to say,
right now, you've seem absolutely withit. You seem pretty good.
I don't know if you're physically good. Was that a process in the last
thirty six hours getting there? Yeah, So basically directly after, I'm just
gonna continue from where I left off. They loaded me into the ambulance and
then rushed me to RMC down herein downtown Orlando, and then immediately put

(06:50):
me into the the eeded emergency apartment. And then there's not a lot of
lightning patient that they see here,and not a lot of them survive.
Wow. So there was not alot of them make it that far.
So a lot of the nurses werecoming over and all the doctors, and

(07:11):
as soon as they realized that Iwas like in stable condition, I became
the learning So all the students whohad never seen a lightning strike before,
Oh, get all the students inhere, get all the new nurses,
get all the one representative from eachdepartment would come see me and then go
get everyone else from their department.It's like one cardiology, any eight more
cardiologists. Wow. A lot ofpeople asking questions over on chat for the

(07:34):
live stream on YouTube. Tommy Awesomesays, do you have any superpowers that
you've noticed? I wish I wasthinking, like like Shazam, no,
no lightning. When I snapped myfingers, I'll tell you what I would
have been trying all that immediately.I would have been running doing whatever I
can to see if I picked upanything light or turn it off. I

(07:56):
mean, I'm sure that the atthe point of impact, and maybe a
couple hours afterwards, that the electricityin your body was heightened. I don't
know if that like changes anything that'saround you as far as electronics. Yeah,
well I was wearing I was wearinglike an Apple style watch, and
then I had a phone in mypocket and they both were fun. Wow.

(08:18):
Really that's surprising. I would havethought they'd be toasted and never loses
their charge either, which is prettycool. I think odds are being struck
by lightning and it given you aless than one in a million. You
happen to be that one. Daniel. How many people have told you that
you should play the lottery? Imean you can't yet, but a lot
of people. Yeah, that seemsto be like the thing that everybody hears.

(08:43):
I'm just waiting for your first customerof the lawn business to be like,
hey man, you were scheduled,you know, sorry about what happened,
but are growing. So Sabrina wasright earlier to point out that you
you seem to be a hard workingyoung guy. You got this business going.
You can launch a lightning sale afterthis. I mean, there's like
big potential. Well, what's thename of your long care company. Let's

(09:03):
get that out there for people.I have a breaker in landscaping. It's
just a small, little little companythat I have for just some neighbors.
I'm still a high school student,so I only do it two days a
week. Now, have you hadany of your friends from high school reaching
out? You must be like,it must make you instantly a little more
popular. I'm thinking right, Well, as I said, I'm homeschool so

(09:24):
I'm oh, yeah, yeah,okay, Well so he was the most
popular kid in school. I wasready student. Yeah, best looking,
most popular kid. Immediately when thathappened, this is this is gonna be
an icebreaker. You know, yougo out and how is somebody? And
you're you know, you're doing thesmall talk, thinking like I was struck
by lightning one time. It's agood fact, Daniel. Thirty six hours

(09:45):
later, what do they still haveyou in the hospital for? Like,
did they have they told you whatthey need to see from you to say
that it's okay to go home.Yes, So I just talked with So
this morning I talked with Well,I had a a bunch of scans.
I had a head and next CT. And that was because right after the
strike they put me in a seacollar so I couldn't move my head because

(10:07):
when I went apparently left flying,they were worried that I could have broken
my neck or back. Oh no, And so they put me through CT
and X ray and I passed those, and then they had me to a
chest CT and then a ultrasound inmy heart because all the electricity is,
you know, can disrupt heart activity. And I just like maybe twenty minutes

(10:28):
before you called, they came inand confirmed that everything checked out with my
heart CT and heart ultrasound. Soapparently I've got a good heart. And
the only thing that there's still wantme to do is a mental competency test.
But aside from that pretty mentally yeah, yeah you ask me. I
think they're just keeping you in thereright now, Daniel, bring the nurse

(10:52):
friends like boy, Yeah, I'vegot the nickname Sparky Shark one all right.
Yeah, they're they're renaming your businessBolt lawn Care. Over on the
chat side of things, I thinkyou could really lean into this if you
wanted to. Just an amazing storyand yeah, very very glad, you're

(11:15):
okay. It's got to be weirdgoing through all of this and talking to
people like us about this, andyou know, I'm just I think people
could pick up something from this nowhaving been struck by lightning, Daniel,
would you be more hesitant if youlook out on the horizon you see a
storm coming and you're you know,you're working on somebody's lawn. I'm imagining
you're going to change up your protocolnow, yes, Well, you know,

(11:39):
like like I mentioned, I alwayswe have a local park and that
has lightning sirens. So that wasjust you know, ever since I was
a little kid, that's what wewent by was, you know, if
the lightning sirens go off, that'swhen you go inside, as far as
I know, and my parents,who can hear it from inside their house,
that said it hadn't gone off yet, So that was, you know,

(12:00):
just out of the blue. AndI think there's a ten mile radius
on it, so there wasn't anywithin ten miles and then all of a
sudden, I was on the ground. The neighbor that saw you, did
she or did he say? Howfar you flew? I haven't talked with
them about that yet, so wehave. There were some security cameras.
One caught right before it happened,and then the lightning strike blinded the cameras.

(12:26):
Oh wow, wow, Yeah,the flash it whited out the cameras
for maybe ten to twenty seconds,and then it comes back on and you
just see me on the ground.And then there's another set of cameras that
there's some sort of issue with thehard drive, but they're trying to see
if the it's like it's got liketwo data sources. One goes to the
security company and to see if thatif they actually still have the footage you

(12:50):
got it. Honestly, I justthink that'd be really cool for this.
Yeah, at the very least,at the very least, you deserve the
footage of you flying through the air. I think we're all at cramb on
that one. All right, Well, we wish you well. Thank you
so much, Daniel for for hangingout with us and chatting today. Yeah,
it's my pleasure and I'm just gladthat everyone was there, you know,
my neighbors were able to respond quicklyin the care department, and all

(13:11):
the great people here at RMC arejust able to take such great care of
me and hopefully we'll get to gohome today. All right, you're so
nice, Daniel. Yes, it'svery very well spoken, nice guy,
Daniel Sharky. There we go.Man, it's truck by light. You
think your day's going one way andthen just like that, everything shanging.

(13:31):
Yeah, it scares me as legitimateconcern. And it wasn't even raining.
So sometimes you think, well,this storm is not even here yet.
We're fine, But does a lessonpick up from this? From what Daniel
is saying, and if you're inAltamont Springs, maybe blow up this business
a little bit. Let's get somemore lowns on the list here. Okay,
we're gonna take quick break. Whenwe come back, we'll hear from

(13:52):
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