Father Struck by Lightning at Daughter’s Wedding Says He’s a ‘Lucky Guy’

One man is lucky to be alive after he was struck by lightning during his daughter’s wedding.

JP Nadeau was giving a toast at his daughter’s July 8 nuptials at an apple orchard in New Brunswick, Canada, and as he turned to the groom and said, “You know, you’re a really lucky guy,” the 66-year-old was struck by a bolt of lightning.

“The weather was fine that day, a little hot and overcast, but we weren’t expecting rain,” Nadeau, 66, a professional piano player, tells Yahoo Style. “While giving my speech, I had my back to a wall of gathering storm clouds, so I had no idea what was coming.”

 

Suddenly Nadeau saw a big flash of light and felt a deep rumble in his head that scorched through his body to the ground. “I was holding a microphone and looked down at my hand and couldn’t see either,” he says. “My whole hand was a ball of electricity.”

Nadeau says the entire experience lasted “less than a second,” and his guests were too stunned to react, except for the quick-thinking wedding photographer who captured the aftermath. In the photo, Nadeau’s white handkerchief falls from his pocket, and his beverage is tossed at the moment of impact.

 

The odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are one in 1,083,000 and one in 13,500 in a lifetime, according to the National Weather Service. In some cases, the event can cause cardiac arrest or brain damage.

When it began to pour, wedding guests filed into a nearby tent, and not wanting to draw further attention to himself, Nadeau declined medical attention and “hit the bar.”

Fortunately, the father was not seriously injured and says the experience even cured an old knee injury, adding, “I’m a really lucky guy.”