A 20-year-old man is recovering after being reportedly struck by lightning while riding his motorcycle on Interstate 66 near Haymarket, Virginia, Saturday.
Noah Fowler, who is from Haymarket, was riding home from a visit to Skyline Drive just before 4:45 p.m. when it happened, according to his sister who spoke on behalf of the family.
“When the lightning struck him, it flew him off the bike, he spun in the air, landed and then slid across the road,” Lauren Fowler, 23, told WTOP.
Virginia State Police confirmed troopers first found Noah laying in the left lane of the road. His motorcycle was on its side in the median.
The lightning traveled through his helmet, medical personnel at a nearby hospital confirmed, Lauren said.
“They could see the lightning went in his ear, busted his whole eardrum open,” she said. “It went through part of his necklace.”
He sustained burns on his neck from the jewelry, as well as other places with metal on his jeans, Lauren said. He is expected to have permanent damage to his hearing out of one ear, preventing him from hearing high frequencies.
In a turn of events that Lauren called “miraculous,” her brother had no broken bones or internal bleeding.
Noah had surgery to transplant skin onto areas where he was burned on Wednesday, and he returned home from the hospital on Thursday — the first time since the crash.
There at the right time
Erica Sutherland, of King George County, Virginia, witnessed the lightning strike. The professional photographer was heading toward Skyline Drive at the time to take sunset photos — the same place Noah was driving home from when he crashed.
Sutherland heard a “loud bang,” while driving through heavy rain. Virginia State Police said Sutherland told them she witnessed a “bright, blinding flash” strike the motorcycle.
“We were like, ‘Woah,'” Sutherland told WTOP. “Then I saw it was a person when he smacked the ground.”
Sutherland, in the passenger seat of her vehicle, told the driver to pull over. She said she started screaming as she rushed over to Noah.
She administered CPR and called paramedics to help.
Sutherland, a mother to a 19-year-old daughter, felt a strong pull to help Noah.
“All I could think is, ‘I have a child this old, and I can’t let him die,’ and he was already dead. He had no pulse,” Sutherland said.
Noah stopped breathing shortly after the strike, reportedly for three to four minutes. When he started breathing again, Sutherland helped him call his mom.
Sutherland said he told her: “Please tell my mom I love her so much if something happens to me. Ma’am, thank you so much for saving me.”
Lauren said she drove to the scene on the opposite side of the highway, “honking at everyone” to get other drivers to move out of her path.
Other members of the family came to the scene, as well as Noah’s girlfriend — who had tracked his location using an app and noticed his phone wasn’t moving, Lauren said.
A good Samaritan turned ‘family’
Noah and Sutherland have bonded through the experience, and the woman is “family now,” according to his sister.
“God really put her there where she needed to be,” Lauren said. “She saved his life. And if it wasn’t for her, he would not be here.”
Sutherland said she doesn’t consider herself a hero and feels connected to the family now, even visiting Noah in the hospital.
“We’re forever going to be united,” said Sutherland.
The days since the lightning strike
Lauren called her brother “selfless,” and said he has a sense of humor about the situation.
“He’s just been making jokes about himself,” she said. “I know he’s having trouble sleeping at night.”
When he is allowed visitors, the family has taken turns so that someone was always by his side.
“I don’t think any of us are really thinking straight,” Lauren said. “None of us can sleep or eat. It’s just crazy.”
She and her younger brother have been preparing for his return home.
“We got lots of cards from people and balloons, and we got him a ‘Welcome Home’ sign,” Lauren said, adding that she hope he feels a little better when he is home. “I think he’s tired of being in the hospital.”
