An Alabama woman has revealed the terrifying moment she was struck by lightning while scrolling TikTok in bed.
Lisa Henderson, 19, was curled up at her home in Russellville on a rainy Sunday afternoon, enjoying a cozy moment with her fiancé when disaster struck.
‘As I was watching a video, that’s when something struck,’ she told Times Daily. ‘After that I heard a loud pop. After the loud pop all I heard was ringing in my ears.’
A lightning bolt had surged through her bedroom outlet, traveling up an extension cord and into her phone charger, zapping her through the device.
Her hands went numb and painful as the electric current shot up her right arm and into her shoulder.
‘She was bawling her eyes off,’ her fiancé, Conner Welborn,said. ‘She had thrown the phone on the bed.’
Panicked, he rushed her to the front of the house while calling 911 and yelling for help from relatives.
Henderson meanwhile, was dazed and confused. Although astonishingly, it was not the first time she has been struck by lightning.
Lisa Henderson, 19, was struck by lightning inside her Alabama home and says she’s lucky to be alive
Henderson said the bolt traveled through her phone charger and left her arm tingling with pain
‘I don’t remember walking from the back to the front of the house,’ she said. ‘I just remember standing by the door, while I was still crying and the lightning striking.
‘I was still terrified of it. I was sitting there just looking around and hearing the ambulance. All I know is I was in pain. It hurt, and I didn’t know what was going on.’
Paramedics arrived and started asking her questions, but Henderson couldn’t remember the basics, like her age or what month it was.
‘They asked me my birthday, and it took me a minute,’ she said. ‘I was having trouble processing. I could understand people but was having trouble communicating with them.’
At the time, her blood pressure had spiked dangerously high, hovering between 160 and 170, according to Welborn.
Though she’s now recovering, Henderon says the pain in her right shoulder still lingers.
‘Luckily, I tossed my phone out of my hand, because it could have been worse than it was,’ she said.
‘You know how it feels when you’re brushing with an electric toothbrush, that kind of vibration that is in your hand? It was kind of like that but stinging. The back part of my shoulder blade hurt worse than the rest of me.’
Her fiancé, Conner Welborn, called 911 after watching her collapse at their Russellville home
Henderson was left dazed and unable to remember basic facts like her birthday after the strike
Her pinky finger, which had been resting on the charger, also took a hit – but has since healed.
She also said she’s lucky to be alive and credits her survival to God.
‘I think he was protecting me because if not I would probably have been electrocuted,’ she said. ‘He gave me enough strength to at least throw my phone away from me.’
Although the common understanding is that lightning doesn’t strike the same spot twice, Henderson is living proof it does.
She explained the first time she was struck was when she was a child.
‘I was just outside,’ she recalled. ‘I wanted to play. That’s all I know. I was taken to the hospital. I remember they gave me a popsicle.’
She spent two days hospitalized before making a full recovery.
According to the National Weather Service, the odds of being struck by lightning in the U.S. are around 1 in 15,300, meaning Henderson has defied the odds twice.
The odds of being struck by lightning in the U.S. are 1 in 15,300, but Henderson has survived it twice after initially being struck as a child
She now jokes about her seeming bad luck.
‘In a situation like that I find it funny because I tend to have bad luck,’ she said. ‘I fell through my apartment floor before. I fell onto this woman’s couch. She looked at me. I looked at her. She led me out of the apartment.’
After Sunday’s incident, she texted friends and family with a tongue-in-cheek message: ‘Hey, if you want to know how my day went, it was a shocking experience.’
