‘It was terrifying’: Utahn catches lightning strike on video from 10-15 feet away

TOOELE, Utah ( ABC4 ) — One Utah woman was filming a storm in Tooele last week when she captured a lightning bolt striking about 10-15 feet away from her.

Kim Jones said the experience was terrifying, and she’s grateful to be alive. She shared that she’s loved taking videos and photos of lightning since she was a kid.

“In my marriage, we’d always go out in the lightning and rain, and it was a special moment for us,” she said.

Jones said as it was thundering on Sept. 10, she went outside and saw the lightning was further out, so she started to film.

“I was thinking to myself, because I’m very spiritual, how amazing God’s voice would be compared to the thunder and how I look forward to hearing God’s voice. Not even a minute later, after thinking that, I caught the lightning strike coming down ten feet in front of me on video, I was on the upper part of my step which is concrete. I felt the electricity and it actually had sizzled like the ends of my hair and on my arms,” she said. “I was like, ‘Okay, that’s way too close.’ So I kind of said some choice words and I was terrified. It was terrifying. I really thought that I was dead for a brief second after it happened. It was extremely loud. My hearing was impaired by it, and I still have ringing in my ears.”

Jones described the lightning in front of her as extremely bright. She said when she went back and watched the video, she realized how beautiful the lightning was, but wouldn’t want to go through that experience again.

She said she thinks what saved her was the fact that she was above the ground, and that she’s grateful to still be here to tell her story today.

“You never know when something like that’s going to happen….I never want anybody to experience that, and so just be very, very careful if you are out chasing storms, because I was lucky. That’s all I can say. I was very lucky.”

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