Teen was trying to sleep when lightning hit his bed - and set it on fire
The Oak Grove, Minnesota 15-year-old was lying in his bed trying to go to sleep while the thunder raged outside his cabin. Corey Wilmer always has been wary of storms, and so was lying awake trying to will himself to drift off, he told the Brainerd Dispatch.
Then he felt "the most odd burning sensation" going through his body, and he was lifted off the bed, he told CBS Minnesota. He had been struck by lightning.
"The lightning lifted me off my bed and it was a short amount of like extreme burning pain. Once it passed through I just snapped and woke me up, I mean I was awake but I only felt the pain when it passed though," Corey told the Brainerd Dispatch.
The lightning strike was so fierce it lit Corey's bed on fire, and he had to grab a bottle of water from his nightstand to try to put it out," he told CBS Minnesota.
“When the lightning was passing through me it was just a complete burning sensation," Corey told KMSP. “It hit my shoulder, went through and down my back."
When it first happened, Corey told the Brainerd DIspatch he thought it was "some sort of nuclear bomb." But he quickly realized what had happened and went for help.
Corey's stepdad Edwin Griego told CBS Minnesota he didn't believe the teen at first.
“(Corey) came in and said ‘I just got struck by lightning.’ I’m like no you didn’t and he’s like well I had to put out a fire with the water bottle. And I’m like ok I better go check that out,” he told the station.
Corey was left with a spiderweb-shaped pattern of markings along his back and arm, KMSP reported. The marks are known as Lichtenberg figures and almost always only occur in lightning strike victims, NBC News reported. They are usually temporary.
“Even the doctor at the hospital, she’s like, ‘I’ve been a doctor for over 20 years and I’ve never seen this,’" Griego told KMSP.
Corey underwent a few tests to make sure his heart was okay, and then was released free and clear, KMSP reported. Now he's just happy to have come out of the experience okay.
“I’m just happy I didn’t get the entire strike because the doctors were saying if I would have got the whole bolt this would have been a completely different story,” Wilmer told CBS Minnesota.
This story was originally published July 3, 2018 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Teen was trying to sleep when lightning hit his bed - and set it on fire."