'It felt like I was being hit with 100 baseball bats' (From Witney Gazette)

'It felt like I was being hit with 100 baseball bats'

9:00am Wednesday 4th October 2006 in Witney By Phil Vinter

LIGHTNING-strike teacher Charlie Sutton admitted last weekend: I should be dead.

The 22-year-old, from Sutton, near Eynsham, was hit by a lightning bolt on the back of his head as he guided pupils from Wantage's King Alfred's School on a charity walk over the Ridgeway on Friday.

He was knocked unconscious, but stunned doctors by making a recovery with few ill-effects. And on Sunday, Mr Sutton said he believed his big head might have saved him.

Frightened students watched as Mr Sutton, a trainee teacher, collapsed, and tried to get to his feet, despite being heavily dazed and unable to see, and then suffered a fit.

He regained a level of consciousness on the way to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and amazingly, his only only injuries were a slight burn to the back of his head, shock, and temporary blindness.

On arrival at the hospital, baffled medical staff crowded round him to see the 'miracle man' who had cheated death in the strike.

"It is the most surreal thing, I never thought in a million years I would be struck by lightning."

Charlie Sutton

Mr Sutton was on working experience, helping to look after 1,000 pupils taking part in a eight-mile sponsored walk to raise money for school equipment.

He said: "Just before it happened, I said to myself it would be pretty bad if one of these kids got hit. Then I felt a bang and a big pain on the back of the head.

"It felt like I was being hit with 100 baseball bats, all at once, it was unbearable. I thought someone had come out of nowhere and attacked me.

"Someone said they just saw this fork of lightning strike my head, and I just fell to the floor.

"I don't recall anything after that. Apparently people were saying 'don't touch him', but someone did, and they got a bit of a shock.

"The kids were absolutely petrified, and when I came round, all I could hear was screams and crying.

"It is the most surreal thing, I never thought in a million years I would be struck by lightning."

Speaking from the safety of his home in Sutton, the Gosford All Blacks rugby player joked that he believed it was his big head that saved his life.

He said: "It must have been my big bonce. I've always had loads of stick from my friends for having a thick head and for not being able to feel things, but I knew it would come in useful one day!

"Last week, I was playing in a rugby game against Wallingford, and a player took a cheap shot at me on the back of the head. I was OK, but a few minutes later, he had to go off with a broken hand!

"When I got to the hospital, the doctors were surrounding me, they were amazed by it. They were saying 'it's so good, it's a miracle, you are alive'.

"I had an entry burn, but the doctors couldn't work out where the electric charge had exited my body.

"When I was lying in hospital, I was more relieved than anything but it has hit home now. I was incredibly lucky."