STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3175, 29 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

Mn. F. F. Tuokett and two guidesChristian Lauenerand Ferdinand Imseng--had been to the summit of Roche Melon, neiir Susa, and were on their way down when they were overtaken by a hail and thunder-storm. They were not far from a little chapel, the annual resort of pious pilgrims during- a certain part of August, and towards this they hastened. Blinded and s-taggeriug, they readied the door, left their iep-axes outside, and darted in, thankful indeed tc have a roof over their herrls. But they did not stay long. Sars Mr. Tuokett : —

" We were in ths very central track and focus of the storm, and ns wo sat crouched upon the floor, the ground aud the building seemed to reel beneath the roar of the detonations, and our heads almost to swim with the jrlarc of tho lightning. " Opposite the door was the altar, ou the step of which I seated myself. Fmsenjr took a [dace by my side, while Christian perched on our coil of rope with bis b 10k to tho wall.

" A qunrtor of an hour may have passed, when a flush of intense vividness seemed almost to dart throusb the window, and so affected Imseng-'s nerves that he hastib quitted his seat and coiled himself up near Christian, remarking that ' that was rather too close to be pleasant' " Then came four more really awful flashes, followed all but instantaneously by sharp, crackling thunder, which sounded a volley of bullets against a metal target, and then a fifth with a slightly increased interval between it and the report. " I was just remarking that I thought the worst was over, when—crash ! went everything, it seemed, all at once:— " No warning of the approach of flame, Swiftly like sudden death it came " "If some one had struck me from behind on the bump of firmness with a sledge hammer, or if we had been in the interior of a gigantic percussion shell which an external blow had suddenly exploded, I fancy the sensation might have resembled that which I for the instant experienced. We were blinded, deafened, smothered and struck all in a breath.

" The place seemed filled with fire, our ears rang with the report, fragments of wkat looked like incandescent matter rained down upon us as though a meteorite had burst, and a suffocating sulphurous odour almost nhoked u«. For an instant we reeled as though stunned, but each sprain? to his feet and instinctively made for the door. " What my companions' ideas were I cannot tell; mine were few and simple—l had been struck, or was being aim 3k, or both ; the roof would be down upon us in another moment; inside wa« death, outside our only safety. Out into the blinding hail we plunged, i ] nzed and almost stuoefied, into the nearest shed. " For the next few minutes the lightning continued to play about us in so awful a manner that we were in no mood calmly to hiveatigate the nature and extent of our injuries. Imseng held his head between his hands, and rolled it. about in bo daft a manner that I thoagbt his brain might bave been affected. " For my own part, I was conscious of a good deal of pain in the region of the right instep, while one of the Christian's hands was bleeding, and he was holding both hia thighs as if in suffering. " As the storm drew off toward 3 the Mont Cenis, we had time to take stock of our condition. Imseng let go his head, Christian declared that his thighs were getting better, and the mischief in my foot proved to be nothing but a flesh wound. My hat, indeed, was knocked in, my pockets were filled with Htones and plaster, and my heart, it may be, was somewhat nearer my mouth than usual, but otherwise we could congratulate ourselves, with deep thankfulness, on a marvellous escape from serious harm. "The lijrhtning, we found, had first struck the iron cross outside the chapel, and smashed in the roof, and in the course of its work inside had overturned the iron cross and wooden candlesticks only three feet from the back of my head."