TAMPA, FLA. (WSVN) - A neighborhood near Tampa was shocked after a lightning strike lighted fire on the ground, Saturday.
“It wasn’t raining. It was cloudy, but that was it and then boom,” said Rod Murphy.
“I was laying in bed. I heard it, a kaboom! It literally sounded like a bomb had exploded,” said Denice Murphy.
During that quick moment, Rod thought his life might be over.
“Only two things happen when you get hit by lightning: you die or you get knocked out,” said Rod. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, and I thought I was a goner.”
Rod had gone outside to turn off his sprinklers.
Then, without warning, lightning struck a small tree in his neighbors’s yard.
“You know how sometimes you can hear a big bolt of lightning explode and you say, ‘Whoa, that was close?’ Well, this literally was close,” Rod said.
The dangerous moment was all caught on a Ring security camera.
Rod’s wife, Denice, couldn’t help but laugh when she saw her husband’s reaction.
“That’s when we were like, Oh, my goodness, this is horrible and funny at the same time, but horrible because when he walked from over there, I would have been running,” she said.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. The ground was scorched a little, but the bolt just missed their neighbor’s house.
While the Murphys can joke about it now, they know how serious it could have been.
“Oh, yeah, it could have been tragic,” said Denice.
“You can’t mess with Mother Nature,” said Rod.
The Murphys also said this is just another reminder that it doesn’t need to be raining for lightning to be dangerous.
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