Jason Bunch was listening to Metallica on his iPod while mowing the
lawn outside his Castle Rock home Sunday afternoon when lightning
hit him. The last thing the 17-year-old remembers was that a storm
was coming from the north and he had only about 15 minutes before
he should go inside. Next thing he knew, he was in his bed,
bleeding from his ears and vomiting. He was barefoot and had taken
off his burned T-shirt and gym shorts. He doesn't know how he got
back in the house. Bunch immediately called his mother, who was in
Illinois visiting family."Mom, I think I was hit by lightning," he
said. Kelly Risheill told her son to call 911, and she started the
14-hour drive home. About the same time, a neighbor saw Bunch's
scorched green and white Reebok tennis shoes in the street, a few
feet away from the lawn mower. She also called for help. Bunch was
taken to Sky Ridge Medical Center and placed in intensive care. He
was sent home Tuesday. "I'm alive, and that is what I am grateful
for," Bunch said as he lay in bed Wednesday.
From the hospital, Bunch called a friend and told him he wasn't
able to go bowling. Then, he called a girl he was supposed to meet
for a date. "I said, 'I did not stand you up. I was struck by
lightning."' Bunch's ears were burned on the inside, and he's lost
some hearing, mostly on the right side. His hair was singed. His
face, chest, hands and right leg have freckle-size welts on them as
if buckshot had come from inside his body out. The wounds follow
the line of his iPod, from his ears down his right side to his hip,
where he was carrying the device. The iPod has a hole in the back,
and the earbuds dissolved into green threads.