Clear Skies Ahead For Lightning Victim

By JOSH POLTILOVE The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 22, 2007

TAMPA - Moments after Jonathan Farmer stepped out of Tampa General Hospital on Saturday, he looked up and expressed relief the skies were clear.

A day earlier, he was one of at least two Tampa Bay area residents to be struck by lightning. Farmer's injuries were not life-threatening, and he was discharged Saturday. The other person's condition has not been made public.

Farmer was hit Friday in a Sam's Club parking lot in Brandon as he went to fetch his truck to pick up his wife, who waited near the store out of the rain.

"I had an umbrella in my hand, believe it or not, but I didn't want to open it because I didn't want to get hit by lightning," said Farmer, 51.

He was set to open the door to his Honda Ridgeline when a bolt hit the pickup, sending electricity through his keys and left thumb before exiting through his left shoe's rubber sole.

After getting zapped, the Apollo Beach resident said, "It felt like a Buccaneers linebacker just laid me out."

Farmer said he was knocked unconscious briefly and that when he woke up, his left side was numb. At first, he was unaware he had been struck.

He said the smell of burning flesh helped him figure it out.

Farmer's wife, Sandy, wondered what was taking him so long. After waiting 15 minutes, she called him.

That's when he told her he had been struck by lightning.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "At first, I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

Farmer was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he got six staples in his head to repair an injury he said he received from falling on the curb or pavement. He also had a small wound in his left thumb, but he said that already has begun to heal.

His numbness is gone.

"I definitely would buy a lottery ticket if I was him," Bradley Peckler, a Tampa General doctor, said. "He was very lucky."

Before leaving the hospital, Jonathan and Sandy Farmer stopped by its main lobby to speak with the media. Sandy Farmer said she and her husband were blessed and fortunate his injuries weren't more severe.

"We've been married 32 years," she said. "I'm not ready to let him go."

Jonathan Farmer said he wasn't too worried about getting struck a second time.

"Chances of getting hit a second time are probably slim," he said.

A separate lightning bolt on Friday struck 16-year-old Tampa boy Sam Santilli in the chest, knocking him unconscious and shredding his shorts, observers said.

Santilli was taken to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. The family asked hospital staff not to release information on the teen.

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691 or jpoltilove@tampatrib.com.