Mother ‘hit by lightning’ as she films wild weather
WHEN Tracey Kutluol leaned out of an upstairs window to film a thunderstorm on her smartphone, she captured rather more drama than expected.
Seconds after she started filming, her own house was struck by lightning and a bolt of electricity was sent up her arm.
Dropping the phone, the 42-yearold and her family were gripped by panic as they feared their house may have been set ablaze.
Now, the footage of the terrifying incident has been watched by thousands of internet users.
The lightning strike happened around 10pm on Thursday at Mrs Kutluol’s home in Galashiels, Selkirkshire. Her footage opens with a series of flashes and thunderclaps and a voice can be heard joking about getting ‘electrocuted’.
There is another warning to be careful, then moments later there comes a flash, a bang and a scream, and the phone is dropped.
Mrs Kutluol is then heard sobbing, ‘I’ve been hit by lightning’, before the clip cuts out.
The housewife believed her iPhone took a direct strike because she felt electricity shoot up her arm, but experts say it is more likely the lightning struck her house.
She said: ‘The phone is working fine with not one mark on the case.
‘I had a tingling in my hand and arm for a bit.’
She added: ‘I had my ten-year-old screaming for the cat... my pal having a panic attack and my 14-yearold daughter thinking the house was going to blow up. We went to each room and pulled the plugs out.’ Friend Michaela Burns, who can be heard in the clip, said: ‘Whether it was the bolt of lightning or an effect of it, something struck her strong enough to knock her phone and cause tingling in her arm.’
Last night, Professor Derek Elmer, an expert on lightning strikes, said the most likely explanation was the bolt had hit the house.
‘I think in this case the lightning struck the building,’ said the emeritus geography professor at Oxford Brooke University. ‘Some of that charge went down the side of the building towards the window where she was and she got some of that lightning, which caused her hand muscles to suddenly tighten and throw the phone out of her hand.
Professor Elmer said there was no possibility that the rubber case around the iPhone 7 Mrs Kutluol was using would have protected her. He added: ‘There is so much pressure and voltage behind the power with lightning that centimetres of rubber isn’t going to make a difference.’