A Pennsylvania teenager was struck by lightning inside her family’s home on Monday night after a bolt somehow entered the house.
Giana Scaramuzzo, 15, was hanging out in her room when she saw the lightning in her mirror.
“All of a sudden I hear the loud sound of thunder, and I see lightning, and I see it reflect from my mirror, and all of a sudden I feel like a shock in my pinky, and then it goes up my body and out through my leg,” Scaramuzzo told Action News 4.
It’s unclear whether the bolt penetrated the roof, or if it came from a window or electrical outlet.
Scaramuzzo told ABC News that paramedics took her blood pressure, which was normal, and gave her an EKG, which was sent to a local hospital.
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“I’m a little scared, still in shock. It’s kind of like I’m shaky and uneasy, too,” Scaramuzzo said, adding she otherwise felt fine.
Circleville Fire Department Capt. Keith Gray told ABC News that six homes, including Scaramuzzo’s, were hit by lightning on Monday night.
The fire department shared photos of the aftermath of the storm to Facebook, including pictures of one of the houses where lightning tore a large hole in the roof.
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“There’s about a 12-by-12 hole in the house,” fire Chief Craig Couchenour told Action News. “It blew pretty much all the drywall on the one side of the living room out.”
The woman who lives in the home, Lori Beckowitz, told the Tribune-Review that no one was injured but that the strike sounded “like a bomb went off next to your ear.”
According to officials, no one else was injured during the storm.
The National Weather Service in the U.S. told People magazine that approximately 10 per cent of people who are struck by lightning are killed. The other 90 per cent can suffer various degrees of injury.
In the U.S., an average of 57 people are killed by lightning each year. In Canada, approximately 10 people die following a lightning strike.
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