A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 12
Sounds like the beginning of a supernatural thriller: Boy struck by lightning:
A 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning — at 13:13 hours on Friday the 13th, according to reports.
The teen was watching an air show at Lowestoft, England, when he was struck and was later treated for burns to his shoulder, the U.K.’s Mirror newspaper said. He is expected to fully recover.
Rex Clarke, leader of the St. John Ambulance team that treated the child, described what happened.
“Suddenly there was this huge crack of lightning really close to the seafront and really loud thunder,” he told the Mirror. “Seconds later we got a call someone had been hit. The boy was breathing and was conscious.”
“He had a minor burn to his shoulder and was taken to hospital as a precaution. It could have been a lot worse,” he said, adding: “It’s all a bit strange that he was 13, and it happened at 13:13 on Friday the 13th.”
Imagine being someone struck by lightning — and surviving. Now add into the mix you were 13 when you got struck. At 13:13 on Friday the 13th.
Do you look at this as a totally random thing. Or…
Might you be inclined to think the event meant something special.
If you’re a writer looking for grist for the mill re this starting point:
StruckByLightning.org
Lightning Strike Survivors
Yes, there are actually enough people who have been struck by lightning and survived that they have conferences for those lucky few. An excerpt from the last article:
The survivors stand up, one by one, and tell their stories. Steve has gone through 38 operations. Marianne still feels disoriented and walks into tables and doorframes. Mike doesn’t need crutches any more. Linda is so overcome by her tears that she can barely speak. She was hit by lightning four times in 24 years.
These tales take up half the morning in a dimly lit hotel conference room in Pigeon Forge, not far from the Dollywood theme park that has put this remote town in Tennessee on the map. The town’s main drag is home to a long string of tourist attractions, from amusement arcades to bumper cars to carnival-like attractions, including a replica of a mine complete with a man-made stream, where visitors enthusiastically dig through buckets of gravel — at $35 apiece — to search for semiprecious stones.
The Lightning Strike and Electric Shock Survivors International World Conference taking place down a side street sounds like yet another attraction — a particularly eccentric freak show, perhaps.
What would you do with this story?