[PUGACHEV]

I was sitting by the beach at South Beach Miami Beach back in 1988 when it was still a mix of Cubans and old folks living in those huge old hotels by the beach on their social security. It was a mild cloudless day, without a hint of bad weather. Then, from nowhere, there was a flash and a crack of thunder about 100 feet away on the beach. Lightning had struck someone dead in an instant, and he just lay there as people ran over to him. Finally, an ambulance drove onto the beach and they took him away. There was no second strike, but a storm came up maybe a half an hour later.

That was absolutely the "Bolt out of the blue", and it gave me a different perspective on life for a while.

[idov]

My son, then 20, got hit by lightning at home while sitting at his computer. It picked him up and threw him into the next room. For the next few months he could see in the dark but he could not walk out in daylight without shades. He kept knocking out electricity by touching stuff. Only permanent damage: one eye is very slightly off line. It is corrected by glasses although only a few eye doctors can diagnose it. One also told him recently he can correct that through eye exercise and may start soon. You learn quickly that doctors generally know nothing about effects of lightning strikes. The only people who were able to perform an examination on his eyes at the outset was an institute on sleep disorders.