Distressing moment Utah teen is struck by lightning during church hike, praises ‘divine intervention’ for survival
Startling footage captured the moment a Utah teen miraculously survived being struck🎀 by lightning during a🍸 church hike, as he credited “divine intervention” for keeping him alive.
Jacob Johnson,18, was hiking Salina Canyon with 50 other teens from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Thursday when the thunderbolt hit th꧃e group, according to .
“We started to hike, and it started to come down pretty hard. I remember thinking like, ‘This is kind of a little scaryꦬ,’” Johnson recalled t🀅o the outlet.
Johnson had been walking along a muddy route during the rain shower 🐎when the earth-shaking crack struck the group.
The teen hikers screamed in fear and confusion, with multiple of them shouting, “I just got hit.”
As the group tried to regain its bearings♔, one of the hik🙈ers can be heard off camera, saying, “Jacob Johnson and I just got hit. I’m ok, but he’s not doing too well.”
The camera pans down to Johnson, seemingly unconscious and lying motionless on𒅌 the ground with a black garbage bag wrapped around his body.
“I remember it felt like a baseball bat had just been swung into my head. And I flew forward,♋ and I blacked out,” Johnson said.
The teen🦩 remembers waki🐼ng up in a daze, thinking that he had died.
“I was thinking, you know, is this it? Yo𝕴u know, did I just die? I was thinking about🌱 all the things that I still wanted to accomplish in my life,” Johnson said.
“I just had an overwhelming sense of love from my Heavenly Father because I knew I had more👍 to do in this w🉐orld and from that moment on, I knew I was going to be okay.”
Johnson, along with six other t🤡eens, were then rushed to the hospital, according to 🌠the outlet.
The 18-year-old suffered a൩ minor concussion and was released a few hours later.
“It’s truly a miracle, considering the circumstances,” Johnson told the outlet. “There had to be some divine intervention because there’s no way that, you know, I just get knocked out on the ground, and the next day, I’m perfectly fine.”
But he bꦐelieves his faith kept him safe during the harrowing ordeal.
“When we have faith, faith in our God that we can get through those things, that’s what I’ve learned,” John𝔍son said.
The wet gro♔und acted as a conductor for the lightning, causing multiple teens to feel the shock, accord꧑ing to the outlet.
Salina Canyon is about 140 miles outside of ℱSalt Lake City.
Around 300 people a year will be struck by lightning in the United States — with an average of 86 people being fatally hit, .
The average person has a 1๊-in-600,000 chance o𓂃f being struck by lightning during their lifetime.
Even the weakest thunderstorms can produce lightning, and most fatal strikes happen while th🎐e victim is hiking, swimmin🌼g, or playing golf, according to the agency.
