Pals who were struck by lightning
Pals Clinton and Jaco say their miraculous survival is like a second chance at life
IT CAME out of nowhere – like a bolt from the blue. One minute the men were standing next to Loskop Dam near Middelburg, Mpumalanga, chatting away as they reeled in a fish; the next there was a blinding flash of white light, a deafening roar of thunder and they were flying through the air, volts of electrical charge surging through their bodies. As Clinton Fleming (29) came crashing down on the lawn about two metres away he thought he was dying. It was unlike anything he’d felt before.
“It was painful,” he recalls. “I felt a hot sensation like I was burning up and all my muscles were tense. Everything was hot.”
There was mayhem all around him. His fishing buddy Jaco le Roux (35) was screaming, children were crying and he could hear that both their partners were in a total panic. But there was nothing he could do to help – when he tried to get up he discovered he couldn’t move his legs.
For about five minutes he remained on the ground, wondering if he was paralysed. But eventually sensation returned to his limbs and he was able to get up and check on his friend – and as soon as he did he realised Jaco wasn’t in good shape.
Because he’d been holding a graphite fishing rod Jaco had borne the brunt of the strike. Part of his pants and his top were burnt off and his pelvic area was exposed. The rod had been resting on his lower abdomen and when the lightning struck it burnt a gaping hole just above his bladder.
“My pants were blown open,” Jaco tells us from his home in Middelburg. “It was an ugly picture. Everything was exposed in front and there was blood.”
But at that point he was in too much pain to care. He says it felt as if someone had doused him in petrol and put a match to him. His feet were black and the force of the lightning had caused his shoes to split open.
“I remember telling my wife to pull me into the water because I felt as if I was burning. I couldn’t feel my legs from the waist down.”
IT WAS a perfect sunny January day – not a rain cloud in sight. Jaco and Clinton and their families planned a fishing outing to mark the end of the school holidays. “We met at Jaco’s house at about 6am and from there we went to Loskop Dam,” Clinton tells us in the garden of his home in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga. “There was no wind – it was a hot, hot day. Even the swimming pool at the resort was so hot we couldn’t cool off in it,” he says.
About 3pm he got the braai going while Jaco continued fishing. Not too long after that they noticed rain clouds encroaching on the mountain opposite the resort and although there was still blue sky above them they decided it was time to pack up.
But at this point Jaco hooked a fish and asked Clinton to bring him the net so he could add it to the day’s haul.
Clinton, who’s a draughtsman at a construction company, recalls that as he retrieved the net he jokingly told Jaco, “You’re going to get us struck by lightning.” And moments later it happened.
“It was sudden and unexpected,” Jaco says. “I saw the fire on the rod. When I realised, I threw the rod, but it was too late.”
A big part of the graphite fishing rod was melted and is now just a mangled blob of fibres.
Clinton and Jaco had been standing next to each other but the lightning sent them flying in different directions when it struck. By the time Clinton was able to get up, campers and other visitors to the dam had already come to Jaco’s aid.
“I told my fiancée to get the kids in the car,” Clinton says.
Once up, he couldn’t sit still and set to work loading everything into the vehicle.
“Everything was ticklish and it felt as if I’d just ran the Comrades marathon. Then people told me to relax and sit down because I was just struck by lightning,” Clinton recalls.
In retrospect, he realises he was in shock. When the paramedics arrived about 40 minutes later they immediately picked up that he had an irregular heartbeat. He was taken to Life Midmed Hospital’s ICU in Middelburg, where staff monitored his heart for three days.
“I felt very tired, but I was scared to fall asleep because I thought I wouldn’t wake up,” Clinton says.
Jaco, a safety manager at the same construction company where Clinton works, says it was only after he arrived at the hospital that sensation returned to his legs. “I started feeling pins and needles in my right foot. Before that I was concerned that I was paralysed.”
The hole in his abdomen was 6cm wide and 5cm deep. Doctors dressed the wound but because he isn’t on any medical aid, Jaco opted to be treated as an out-patient and was later treated at Life Cosmos Hospital in eMalahleni.
The healing process was excruciating, he says. The doctor had to remove the dead tissue from the wound which meant it would bleed.
The wound must heal before doctors can perform a skin graft, Jaco says.
“Luckily it didn’t affect my bladder and any major arteries.”
THE ordeal was an eye-opener for both men. Clinton says it feels as if he’s been given a second chance at life. He confesses that when the lightning struck it felt as if his day of reckoning had arrived.
He was terrified. “At that moment you know one fact – I’ve been hit by lightning, now am I going to live or am I going to die? Did I spend enough time with my fiancée and my children? Did I do my job to the best of my potential?”
Clinton and his fiancée, Charné Nel (30), have three children between them – Michael (9), Megan (3) and Dylan (10 months).
He says it felt as if he was having an encounter with God. “It felt as if God took me by the ears and shook me, saying, ‘Hey, you’d better come right’.”
Jaco also feels thankful to be alive. “When you read stories about what happened to people who were struck by lightning you realise how lucky you are.”
He says when he saw the blinding flash of light he was already preparing himself for the worst.
But having survived the ordeal Jaco – who has two daughters, Deoné (10) and Elmike (7), with his wife, Desireé (40) – knows one thing for sure: he won’t be going fishing again anytime soon.
Clinton, on the other hand, recently accompanied a friend on a fishing trip. But something has changed, he says. After what happened, fishing just isn’t as much fun as it used to be.
‘I felt like I was burning up and all my muscles were tense’