Woman 'lucky' not to be home as lightning strikes

A woman says she is "lucky to be alive" after a lightning bolt struck her home.

Liz Odell, 67, was away in Cambridge when her house in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, was hit by lightning on 15 April.

She returned to a home without electricity and several broken devices, including her TV, music system and internet router.

Odell believes had she been at home, in the shower or touching one of the surfaces involved, she could have been killed.

"I think it probably hit my aerial," she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"My neighbour texted me to tell me my house had just been struck by a thunderbolt and my alarm was going off.

"It was lucky I wasn't in the house because if I'd been in the shower or touching anything I may well not be here.

"[The lightning strike] took out the aerial junction box. It came down and it burnt out a lamp in the bathroom ceiling."

Odell said apart from the damaged bathroom light, there was not much evidence of the lightning strike apart from so many of her electrical devices no longer working.

"I've got to have a new fuse board, it destroyed my television, sound bar and subwoofer," she said.

"It broke my music system and it took out my router and my BT box.

"My gas boiler is no longer working, so I have no central heating or hot water."

Odell, who has been living at her home for almost 16 years, said she hasn't experienced anything like it before.

"As they say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place," she said. "Hopefully it's a once-in-a-lifetime event".

Her neighbour Steve Robinson, chairman of Gloucestershire County Council and a Labour Party district councillor for the area, said several nearby homes were affected by the lightning strike.

"It was a really loud bang," he said. "It was huge - I've never heard a bang like it.

"It did our Sky Q box in and also the router. It tripped everything else as well. One neighbour lost his landline.

"At least four houses suffered in some way. But nothing like Liz's."

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