HIT BY LIGHTNING

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1935, Page 6

HIT BY LIGHTNING

EXPERIENCE OF ARIA FARMER. TEMPORARILY PARALYSED. Amazed that he is alive to tell the tale, Mr. A. J. Keighley, an Aria farmer, was recently struck by lightning, hurled 16 feet through the air, and after being knocked unconscious for half an hour was paralysed for a short time. In addition, he received bad burns which went through the four thick articles of clothing he was wearing at the time. The incident, Mr. Keighley told a reporter, occurred after he had left his house about noon. To shelter from a storm of rain which suddenly descended, he sought the shelter of some bushes. Half an hour later, utterly without recollection of what had happened, he came to, paralysed except for a slight movement in his toes. He shouted to a boy working in a shed nearby and immediate help was brought. Mr. Keighley told a reporter that he attributed his miraculous escape to the gum boots he was wearing preventing a complete circuit. He was badly burnt on the shoulder, leg, hip, thigh and back and thp soles of his feet were blistered. He has completely recovered, the only difference being that, though he feels fitter as the result of the experience, his voice is pitched in a higher key than formerly.