A Jasper, Texas teen is recovering after being struck by lightning while fishing with his mother during Mother’s Day weekend storms.
JASPER, Texas — As storms moved through Southeast Texas over the weekend, a Jasper teenager is considering himself lucky to be alive after surviving a lightning strike while fishing with his mother.
Hunter Wyche said the frightening experience happened Saturday during a Mother’s Day weekend fishing trip.
“I’m lucky to be able to do anything at all. I don’t know how I lived,” Hunter said.
Hunter and his mother, Michelle, were fishing when the weather suddenly changed.
“I was trying to get out of the rain a little bit, and lightning struck blew me back five feet or so and hit my back on a tree,” Hunter said.
According to Hunter, the lightning traveled through the tree, into his fishing pole and then through his body.
“I blacked out, and my whole body went completely stiff. I was in shock. Ironically,” he said.
His mother witnessed the strike happen in front of her.
“I told him, Well, if it starts thundering, we need to go in. And soon as that happened, it just it was like an explosion, like a big light, and it sounded like a bomb went off,” she said.
When Hunter regained consciousness, he realized something was wrong.
“I couldn’t feel my legs when I come back too. I couldn’t move my right foot. I could barely move my right leg. The strike went in kind of through my stomach around here, and went all the way down through my leg and come back up through the top of my foot,” he said.
Michelle immediately called 911.
Chief James Gunter with the Beech Grove Volunteer Fire Department said first responders were preparing for the worst when they arrived.
“Fully expecting the worst and very pleased to find the best,” Gunter said.
He said Hunter was alert, conscious and even joking with responders when crews reached him.
After examining the scene, Chief Gunter noticed something unusual about the tree involved in the strike.
“Looking at the tree after the fact, the tree has been struck by lightning before, and the tree was dead from the previous lightning strike. So the old adage of lightning never strikes twice in the same place, you can throw that out the window,” he said.
Hunter is still dealing with lingering pain following the strike.
“My bones in my right leg are real weak, my hip, my knee, my foot, just a lot of weakness,” he said.
Despite the near-death experience, Hunter says he has no plans to give up fishing.
“I’m probably the unluckiest, lucky man alive to come out the way I did,” he said.
Or even avoid the same spot where it happened.
“Couldn’t happen a third time… Good fishing spot. What can I say.” he joked.
For Michelle, seeing her son back home from the hospital on Mother’s Day was the best gift.
“That’s the most wonderful sight right there,” she said.