Struck By Lightning

Kellylee Evans celebrates her new album. Photograph by: Jean Levac , Ottawa Citizen

That photograph does not illustrate how jazz singer Kellylee Evans reacted when she was struck by lightning earlier in June. What the photograph does demonstrate is her enthusiasm as a performer for the trajectory her singing career has taken lately. That photograph was taken long before 38-year-old Kellylee Evans was, in fact, truly struck by lightning.

She had been in her kitchen in her home in the countryside nearby Ottawa. And the evening of June 8 just happened to be a very stormy one. So much so that her three children were extremely upset and nervous at the clapping thunder, the bright bursts of lightning, and their mother assured them as mothers do, that nothing bad could happen to them.

She was right; nothing bad did happen with her children. It was she herself who, standing close by her kitchen window at around six in the evening, washing up from the evening meal, when lightning entered her home and struck her. She had been holding a wet sponge, and felt a powerful movement stream through her body. She dropped the sponge, jumped away from the sink, and screamed.

"I felt, like, a big zap. A jolt. You just feel shocked. All those crappy movies about people getting electrocuted? That's it. It's that feeling. But I didn't feel any pain", she later related in an interview.

She felt immediately fatigued, and fell asleep. A sleep so deep, she slept right through twelve hours before awakening and when she did, she felt her heart was racing. Afterward she experienced no feeling in her left arm and fingers, and her voice became blurred, her breathing laboured. Some memory felt vague, she felt dizzy, her limbs weakened, and then her voice went entirely.

She is, thankfully, recovering. She still feels unsteady at times, with her arms and legs a bit weaker than they should be. She has since been informed by experts that one should avoid standing beside a window during a violent thunderstorm. Her home has concrete floors; the experts recommend wearing footwear on such occasions. The wet sponge she was holding likely touched a metal surface, allowing a "contact effect".

The lightning had been given a conduit through which to run, according to Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, professor emerita at University of Illinois at Chicago, responsible for the American National Weather Service's Lightning Safety strategy. "She's a very typical case. There's usually sleep at the beginning, some confusion, not knowing what's going on. 

"Then you start getting into the 'Oh my gosh' anxiety stage and the anxiety can start feeding on itself. Then the layers of the onion start peeling back with slurred speech, confusion", along with other, stroke-like symptoms. Fewer than a third of lightning-strike victims become burned in the process. What ensues with a lightning strike is a brain injury, treated like a concussion.

Environment Canada claims that about ten people die and between 100 and 150 are injured by lightning strikes each year in Canada. About one-fifth of like occurrences in the United States, because lightning season is shorter in Canada; the further north, the lower the chance of a lightning strike.

As for jazz singer Kellylee Evans, she will be opening for Willie Nelson at the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival this coming weekend. And will appear later on during the festival with John Legend and Joe Cocker. And she's feeling pretty good now. Excited about her newly-released album, set to go on a multi-city Canadian tour.

And more "power" to her.

Ethan Miller / Getty Images // David Kawai / Postmedia News file   Kellylee Evans likens recovery from a lightning strike to a computer reboot — you have to de-frag, run anti-virus, recover all the data. It can be slow and exhausting.