by Chris Conte
GAINESBORO, Tenn. - The chances are slim: only one in one million people in the entire United States will be struck by lightning every year, but 48-year-old Rosie Smith of Gainesboro managed to defy those odds on Sunday night.
"Out of the blue, it just came out of the blue," Rosie said sitting in her living room Tuesday morning.
Rosie had just gotten home from the grocery store, and logged onto her computer to check some emails when she said she heard it.
"Then all of a sudden it's like the sky opened up and 'Ba Boom!"' she recalled.
A single bolt of lightning had managed to travel through a phone cord that was connected to Rosie's DSL modem. The massive jolt of electricity traveled through her computer into her right knee, and then out of her right arm.
"It was like fire, fire and that's what I thought, I said to myself 'oh my God my arm's going to melt off,"' she explained.
The force of it all happening was so intense, Rosie was blown out backwards out of her desk chair and landed on the floor of her living room. Her daughter rushed her to the hospital where she was checked out and released. The only sign of the whole ordeal is a large bruise she still has on her right arm.
"Now I should win the lottery right?" she said laughing.
"They say you have a better chance of winning the lottery then being hit by lighting, right?" she asked.
Email: cconte@newschannel5.com
