A 12-year-old girl was rushed to the hospital in Arizona after being struck by lightning during intense storms in the state. Doctors said she is lucky to be alive, crediting her father with saving her life.
Dr. Kevin Foster, who is the director of the Arizona Burn Center, said on Monday morning that Ella Jorgensen is doing well and that her family was in good spirits. He added that she is expected to be released very soon from the hospital.
Ella's dad, Steven Jorgensen, said the first thing she said after waking up was that she was going to have a cool story to tell. Foster said the girl's father was at the right place at the right time. Ella's heart stopped three separate times after she was struck by lightning. Each time, Steven, a Marine veteran, resuscitated his daughter by performing CPR.
Ella fortunate lightning that hit her was not a direct strike
He told KTVK/KPHO that he is just a dad taking care of his daughter. He added that he was trying to keep calm over the whole situation, with the CPR training scene from "The Office" kicking in his head. He said that you can hear him singing the Bee Gees hit "Staying Alive" as he was giving her resuscitation.
The Jorgensens and some of her friends were in Sun City West to visit grandparents when the storms hit on Saturday. Steven said that it just seemed like any other normal day when it comes to the rain here in Arizona.
He said his daughter was just stepping outside when the thunder started to rumble. Just a few seconds later, Ella was hit. Doctors said she was lucky because they believe the lightning was not a direct strike, and it most likely struck right next to her.
Steven said that when they were taking the breathing tubes out, that was when she was trying to figure out what happened. He broke the news to her that she got struck by lightning and she did not believe him at first. Once they got the tubes out and her mother told her again what happened, Ella just looked at her mom and said that she is going to have a cool story to tell forever now.
Lightning strikes killed 19 people in the U.S. this year
Jorgensen said the main injury that his daughter suffered was on her chest. Ella also has real small, superficial burns that came from the necklace that she was wearing at the time of the lightning strike.
While lightning strikes are quite common, being struck by one is not. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the chances of a person being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million.
While almost 90 percent of lightning strike victims survive, the National Weather Service (NWS) found that 19 people in the United States have died from lightning strikes thus far this year.
