Hiking Youth Group Hit by Massive Lightning Strike
What started out as a fun youth event hiking the beautiful and scenic trails of Utah, quickly turned into a horrifying experience.
While 14-year-old Peyton Bailey was capturing the moment on her phone, a storm was moving in bringing with it rain, hail and lightning.
“There’s lightning and that’s when it coincidentally just happened to just crash right in front of us,” Bailey says in an interview with FOX13.
Her amateur filming caught her fellow hikers screaming in shock as lightning hit the ground they were standing on, crashing all around them.
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“It was so bright and the sound was so loud, there was ringing in my ears and it felt like a bunch of weight had hit my head and pushed me backwards,” Bailey recalls.
According to reports, dozens of the youth had to be transported to the hospital by various means due to electrocution, with two of their injuries being severe enough to warrant medevac by helicopter.
“It felt like someone had hit me with a baseball bat in my head and then a huge pressure of thousands of pounds was on me, but then it released, and my heart was beating so fast,” Bailey told Fox News Digital via email. “I stood up quickly, and we were all in shock saying, ‘We just got hit by lightning!’ We were giggling at first, but then the reality set in.”
“The storm rolled in so fast and many of our leaders had already left to get the trucks to get us out of the storm. Had they not, we wouldn’t have gotten out so quick. That was a miracle before the lightning struck,” Bailey recalls.
Bailey and others chalk this non-fatal event up to divine intervention looking out for them and ensuring no one lost their life that day.
“We believe angels and a loving heavenly Father were protecting us,” Bailey says.
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.
