14-Year-Old Boy's School Shoes Saved His Life When Struck By Lightning Bolt

A 14-year-old Australian boy who was struck by lightning was apparently saved by the sole of his shoe after the rubber absorbed most of the current.

Talyn Rose was walking through the front gate of his Robina State High School on Oct.22 morning when a lightning bolt struck a nearby pole and traveled through the ground, his body and out of his arm.

The powerful electric charge caused his muscles to tense and then go completely numb, knocking him to the ground.

"I noticed when I hit the bitumen but that’s about it," Rose said.

"It was a really – it felt like a really slow fall. Like I could take in most of my surroundings before I hit the floor."

"Everything was numb. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn’t feel any pain. It was all, like, painless, I guess."

The literally shocking incident happened just minutes after the boy waved goodbye to his mother, Michelle Nimmo.

Luckily, a man sitting in his car outside the school witnessed the scene and rushed to help the unresponsive teen and took him inside the school.

His mom was alerted about the incident but by the time she arrived at the school, emergency services had been treating the boy and he had already begun to recover from the shock, however, he was still rushed to
the hospital.

Rose later told his mother that he could barely hear or feel anything for a while after the incident.

Doctors who examined Rose told Nimmo that the thick rubber soles of the boy’s school shoes likely absorbed most of the shock wave, thus, saving his life.

"Paramedics said he is extremely lucky to be alive and that they have never seen anything like it in their whole careers," Nimmo was quoted as saying by Daily Mail Australia.

The markings on Rose’s feet and shoulders took three days to fade away completely. He has now fully recovered from the incident.

Rose said jokingly that his sister tried to plug her phone into him a few times "but it doesn't work".