Nels Hansen wasn't singing in the rain when a lightning flash lit up the slo-pitch ballfield Wednesday night at College Heights secondary school.
Despite the fact he was holding an umbrella at the time he was struck by that electrifying bolt, he escaped without getting burned.
"I feel I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world right now," said the 43-year-old Hansen.
"It was just a flash and my hand basically lit up. I was watching it, it was like my heart was being Tasered. When it hit me I couldn't let go of the umbrella, my whole arm was contracted. Once I realized I was OK, I just started freaking out. I got hit by lightning."
The ionic charge broke the top off the umbrella Hansen was holding. It took about 30 seconds before he was able to release his grip on the umbrella and about five minutes before his arm muscles relaxed. He went to his doctor on Thursday for a thorough check-up. Aside from a sore hand, he's been given a clean bill of health.
Hansen had just taken over scorekeeping duties from teammate Bill Reid, who left the park before the lightning hit. That was fortunate for Reid, who has a heart condition and recently had a pacemaker installed. Hansen was sitting under his umbrella behind a chain-link backstop on wooden bleachers right next to teammates Chrissy Hewlett and Scott Horvath when it happened.Hewlett could hear the charge traveling through Hansen's arm and it sounded like water droplets landing on a hot skillet.
"I just saw the umbrella flicker a bit but I talked to a girl who was on the field behind us and she and another fielder saw the strike, it was so bright," said Hewlett. "She just dropped her bat and she was done, seeing it strike that close."
Horvath is convinced the lightning bolt hit the fence first before it made contact with Hansen. He said it looked like a photographer's flash lighting up the umbrella. He heard the thunder crack and saw a thin wisp of electricity travel from the metal fence to the top of Hansen's umbrella.
"It wasn't a bolt he got hit by, those are the ones you don't survive," said Horvath. "I was reading up on it and lightning doesn't have to strike something. The air is already charged, so the fence area would have already been charged as the strike hit very close to us. He's still a lucky guy, it could have been a bigger flash. Maybe he might get superpowers out of it."
A few minutes before the strike, with the rain coming down steadily, Horvath and Hansen had discussed calling the game off. Horvath says he hopes the incident serves as a warning and the league will adopt a stricter policy on cancelling games whenever there's a threat of a lightning storm.
"People just kept on playing through the rain, with big cracks overhead," said Horvath. "There shouldn't be any question about it, the games should be over."
Hansen has had his share of brushes with death, including a quad accident, a rollover crash in his Mustang, and a near-disastrous dive off a 40-foot cliff into shallow water. The first thing he did when he got home Wednesday night was to give his girlfriend Wanda Birmingham a hug, then went to the corner store to buy lottery tickets.
His favourite song right now is AC/DC's Thunderstuck. Hansen put his story on Facebook and Twitter and he's had more than 200 people respond. His phone won't stop ringing and he's attracted national media attention.
"It's just been nuts," said Hansen.
