Ever since lightning struck the ground in front of me when I was 8, I've been deathly afraid of thunderstorms. But stories like this make me realize just how lucky I was. Thalita Teixeira Padilla was out walking her dog in September 2023 when lightning struck her. She's spent the better part of a year in the hospital recovering.
Last September, life was going good for Padilla. She was about three months into a nursing contract at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She was new to the Boston area and decided to hit a local beach with her Australian shepherd. Nothing on that day showed any signs that Padilla should be worried.
She explained to People, "It was the end of summer and the beach was busy. I remember people playing volleyball and cornhole. There was music. It had been sunny, but the clouds soon rolled in and it began to drizzle. After my dog went to the bathroom, we decided to head back to the car. As we walked, a woman stopped me to compliment my dog. Then I don't remember anything else."
It's not uncommon for people to lose their memory of traumatic events. Padilla ended up getting struck by lightning. As she explained, "But what happened was I was struck by lightning in the chest, had a cardiac arrest, fell onto the concrete, and was without oxygen for 15 minutes."
Many people underestimate the destructive force of electricity. It doesn't just shock or burn you, but it can devastate your internal organs. The nurse experienced catastrophic injuries from the lightning blast.
Lightning Hurts Nurse
She said, "The lightning burned my chest and my spinal cord from the inside, leaving me with a spinal cord injury, something I didn't find out about until three months after the incident. The bolt then came out of my right leg, my knee and foot. And I suffered a lot of nerve damage.The leash between me and my dog also got burned and I later learned he ran away from the fear of the sound, which was so loud that it popped my eardrum. I still can't hear anything out of that ear."
Fortunately, people managed to track down her dog. She said, "I'm so happy that he's alive, and although I am wheelchair-bound with two ankles that are unable to move, I believe it's a miracle how far I have come."
The nurse ended up spending months in the hospital. She was unable to talk for three weeks after getting struck by lightning. She also ended up having a tracheostomy delaying her ability to speak or eat even longer. It's taken a long time to recover, and she's still adjusting to a new normal. The nurse has battled depression but is looking optimistically to the future.
She said, "You really never know what life is going to bring. What happened to me was a freak accident and it could have happened to anyone. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of that is God's fault. That's just life, and I'm finally getting a chance to rewrite my story."
