BELLINGHAM, Mass. (WPRI) — It’s rare to be struck by lightning, but one Massachusetts woman lives to tell her story.
Shelby Klopf is now resting at home and assuring her young boys that she is now OK.
“I’m just very happy to be alive and I’m happy to be coming home to my children tonight,” Klopf said Wednesday. “Because it could have gone a very different way.”
Her mother-in-law, Renee Rovedo, showed reporters the office in the back of their Bellingham home where Klopf was working when the lightning struck.
In the split-second Klopf turned the light switch on her lamp, the lightning bolt struck the home, sending electricity through the line and into her body.
“All of a sudden I felt a huge boom, saw an extremely bright white light that has now affected my vision, and I flew back,” Klopf recalled.
The lightning did not damage the home, but Klopf couldn’t move.
“She was laying across the couch and her arms were out straight and her fingers were paralyzed and she couldn’t move,” Rovedo said. “She was screaming.”
Klopf was rushed to UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester where she had a mild seizure. Doctors are now worried about the lasting effects.
She is still in a lot of pain — feeling tired and having trouble seeing — but is glad to be back home.
“I get to see my children,” she said. “And that’s all that really matters.”
Rovedo says their house was struck by lightning once before back in 2002, causing a small fire.
