‘All of a sudden boom! It just blows up’: Lifeguard survives lightning strike
By Bob Hazen
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VOLUSIA COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — A Volusia County lifeguard is thanking God after surviving a lightning strike this weekend in Ormond Beach.
Damien Curry told WESH 2 he had volunteered to work on July 4th and was responding to a call about a woman who needed help getting to her car near the Seminole Avenue access point when the bolt hit nearby.
“I’ve got my hand on the side of the truck, and then all of a sudden boom! It just blows up, and I jump through the truck. I get lifted off my feet,” Curry said. “I’m shaking, I mean I’m violently shaking. I was in panic. My whole left side of my body was tingling, pins and needles. It was like a bomb went off.”
Curry said he was able to pull himself together, help the woman, and then drove down the beach warning others about the lightning.
“I’m literally on the PA with the lights on going, ‘get off the beach! I just got struck by lightning, you’re gonna die!’”
Curry said paramedics later checked him out and he went to the hospital. He says the tingling sensation subsided several hours later and he’s feeling much better now.
“It was a rough sleep with the fireworks going off. The next day the worst thing happened, the storm came in and I had a full blown panic attack yesterday,” Curry said.
Curry runs a landscaping business and is also a candidate for Ormond Beach’s mayor. He has been a part-time lifeguard for eight years but says now he’s probably going to take a break from watching over the waves for a while.
“My wife wrote on the fridge ‘no more lifeguarding’,” Curry said.
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