3 women simultaneously struck by lightning in Rolling Dam
Three women in southern New Brunswick are thankful to be alive after a lightning strike hit all three of them last weekend.
They say the strike came on a clear Saturday evening in Rolling Dam near Birney's Lake with only the slightest rumble of thunder as warning.
"There was just this godawful boom," said Gloria Caldwell.
"The tree exploded, and people were thrown everywhere."
"It came in through my big toe and it went out through my ring finger. The end of my finger was black."
Caldwell points to her camp chair with a small scorch mark on the fabric where the electricity exited her body.
"But that was nothing compared to what happened to Heather," said Caldwell.
'It was a direct hit'
Heather Donahue was also sitting around in a group when she was struck by lightning.
"I don't recall anything until I was in the ambulance," said Heather Donahue.
"It was a direct hit. I was in a lot of pain."
Donahue said the force from the strike knocked her forward then backwards in her chair before throwing her out of it so forcefully she was diagnosed with whiplash and a concussion.
"My husband thought I was dead," she said.
When Mark Donahue tried to prop up his wife's head, he said he could smell her singed hair.
"You get that odour, that smell. I noticed the hole in the back of her shirt and I pulled her shirt down and you could tell where the lightning hit her just right below the neck," he said.
Donahue and Caldwell say the strike also shattered a nearby pine tree sending large, sharp shards of wood into the ground.
As well, they say a section of ground exploded nearby, raining soil down on the group.
"It was a six-foot-wide hole, and about three feet deep," said Mark Donahue.
All three women were hospitalized, but have since been released to heal from their various injuries.
Caldwell said her feet are still quite sore, while Donahue said she's lost all hearing in her left ear and is still suffering from many injuries related to the strike, including short-term memory loss.
"But we are all very fortunate to be alive," said Donahue.
