A 16-year-old girl has miraclously survived after being struck by a bolt of lightning on her way to school in Victoria’s north-west.
Lorianne Lowerson was walking to Irymple Secondary College, near Mildura, during a thunderstorm when she was struck at around 9am yesterday morning.
The umbrella Lorianne was holding acted as a conductor, sending a powerful surge of electricity pulsating through her hand.
“I saw a bolt of blue jolt through the umbrella,” she said. “I heard a little noise and then my umbrella shocked my hand.
“It hurt quite a bit in my hand and upper arm.
“It shocked me, I didn’t really know what was going on.”
Lorianne managed to make it to school and raise the alarm.
“My teacher thought I was joking at first and we had a little laugh together,” she said. “I had to tell her that I really did get struck by lightning.”
Lorianne was assessed at a nearby hospital and later discharged.
“There was a specialist who came in and said I was the first victim he had seen of a lightning strike in his 25 years of nursing,” she said.
Miraculously, Lorianne only suffered bruising to her hands and a headache.
“I think I’m unlucky that I did get struck by lightning, but I think I’m lucky I survived the whole ordeal,” she said.