Video from a home security camera captured the moment lightning struck a Sebring neighborhood in Florida over the weekend.
When lightning struck a tiny tree in Rod Murphy’s neighbor’s yard across Granada Road on Saturday, he had just gone outside to turn off the sprinklers.
Murphy said the bolt struck him around 75 feet away, temporarily blinding him with a bright white flash.
At the moment of the strike, Rod Murphy draws his hands to his chest in the footage. Behind him, the ground seems to burst upward, and a little fire appears to kindle under the blow.
Murphy said he was so startled by the explosion that he didn’t know if he was alive at first.
“You’re standing here and you get this big vibration and I thought that was it,” he said. “Only two things happen when you get hit by lightning: you die or you get knocked out, you don’t know what’s going to happen. And I thought I was a goner.”
Although no injuries were reported, the incident left neighbors shaken.
