A Kentucky man who has been struck by lightning twice revealed he now has premonitions about when storms are coming ahead of the forecast.
Danny Devine, 66, of Cave City, near Bowling Green, was first struck by lightning in 2007 while celebrating his grandson’s birthday.
He and his wife, Lisa, 59, were hosting a pool party, and the sky was filled with warm sunshine. Suddenly, a ‘little cloud popped up and it started to rain.’
‘It was the brightest lightning and the loudest thunder,’ Lisa recalled of the storm.
As everyone moved indoors, Danny told his son to go close the garage door and went to help him. When he touched the metal door, lightning struck him.
‘It went in his hand and out his feet,’ Lisa, a nurse, told the Daily Mail.
Their son informed his mother that Danny was on the ground with no pulse and was not breathing. They quickly moved him out of the way, which caused him to go into an irregular heartbeat.
Danny remembers none of this. He was struck by lightning one moment and woke up in the hospital the next, with no recognition of his wife or family.
Danny Devine, 66, of Cave City, near Nashville, and his wife Lisa were hosting a party for their grandson’s birthday when a storm rolled in and Danny was struck by lightning in 2007
‘He didn’t know me, he didn’t recognize our house,’ Lisa said.
Danny would spend three days in the hospital recovering and would spend three years struggling with short-term memory loss.
‘Mornings are really hard for him,’ Lisa said, after taking over the phone call with the Daily Mail as Danny has just woken up. She said it takes around an hour for him to be able to process his thoughts after waking up.
‘It changes your personality. It’s like a closed-head trauma,’ the nurse continued. ‘He’s not the same person that I married. Although it’s getting better, I see glimpses of him.’
Danny also suffered from chronic pain, ringing in the ears, and had to go through speech therapy for years.
The second time he was struck by lightning was in 2023 while he was sitting inside his own home.
A storm was rolling through, and as a precaution, Danny and his wife unplugged everything inside their home and camped out in the living room.
Danny had forgotten to unplug the coax cable connected to the TV. The next thing they knew, lightning had struck their house, sending bolts of electricity through the cable.
As everyone moved indoors, Danny told his son to go close the garage door and went to help him. When he touched the metal door, lightning struck him. ‘It went in his hand and out his feet,’ Lisa, a nurse, told the Daily Mail (pictured: stock image)
‘A big ball of blue flame came out of the front of the TV, went around me and hit him,’ Lisa recalled. It knocked Danny off the couch, but luckily, he didn’t need medical assistance.
‘He was stunned.’
The experience left him with a peculiar premonition and he’s now able to sense a storm before it arrives.
‘He can feel the storm a few days beforehand,’ Lisa said. ‘He tells me: “There’s a storm coming.” He can tell if its a large or small storm.’
‘I can actually feel the storms coming a day or two ahead of time,’ Danny said.
Being struck by lightning can temporarily change the polarity of one’s body, medical experts said. However, the Devines believe it permanently changed his.
‘Doctors tell [survivors] to get over it, but it’s very real,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘The post-traumatic stress is real.’
Lisa also suffers from secondary trauma from the experience as she can feel her husband getting anxious during bad weather.
Now, every storm, they unplug everything that conducts electricity and stay in their living room together. They also pay attention to weather reports.
Their son informed his mother that Danny was on the ground with no pulse and wasn’t breathing. They quickly moved him out of the way, which caused him to go into an irregular heartbeat. Danny remembers none of this
‘We watch the weather very closely,’ Lisa said. ‘We don’t go out if we know it’s going to rain.’
The Devines’ best advice is ‘when thunder roars, go indoors.’
‘Not a pavilion or a carport, a structure,’ Lisa advised.
Lighting can travel horizontally for hundreds of miles, meaning just because it’s not near you, does not mean it cannot hurt you.
The longest lightning strike was 515 miles long, spanning from East Texas to Kansas City in 2017.
It produced more than 116 subsidiary strikes during the seven seconds the bolt lasted.
A lot of people tell Danny to play the lottery after hearing his story, but the couple doesn’t think it’s good advice.
‘There’s a lot better chance you’ll be struck by lightning than win the lottery,’ Lisa said.
Danny was struck again in 2023. Since the strikes, he said he can feel a storm (stock image) coming a few days beforehand. ‘He can tell if its a large or small storm,’ Lisa said
Surviving a lightning strike is high and around 90 percent, but 80 percent of patients have long-term effects. The chance of surviving a strike is largely based on luck.
Around 40 million lightning bolts hit the ground in the United States each year.
Florida is considered the lightning capital of the world, with more than 2,000 injuries per year, according to the CDC.
The Sunshine State, as well as, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have the most lightning deaths per year.
Between 2006 and 2021, nearly 445 deaths have occurred from lightning strikes. Nearly one-third of those strikes happened indoors.
