Lightning strikes pregnant midwife

ORMOC CITY, Philippines – A 40-year-old casual employee of the city government is now in comatose state after she was hit by lightning inside her home yesterday.

Jocelyn Romero, a worker of the Ormoc City Health Department, was preparing lunch in their house at Barangay Sabang Bao when lighting hit the Gmelina tree near their house, the electric current of which flowed through a tie wire, used as clothesline, into the kitchen where its tip was tied.

Due to the impact, Jocelyn and her only child, who was with her, were thrown away. She was holding a kitchen knife at the time of the freak accident.

Randy, her husband, told The FREEMAN that their 4-yr-old child, who suffered shoulder burns, came out running and shouting for help toward the grandmother’s house a few meters away.

Randy, who was also nearby, responded and saw his wife unconscious on the floor with burnt hair and belly. “The short pant’s metal zipper disintegrated, and probably caused the burns on her belly,” he said.

The attending physician, in a separate interview, said that when Jocelyn arrived at the hospital, she was already “arrested” (flatline).

“Good that she responded when we revived her. But she developed encephalopathy (brain damage) due to anoxia or no blood circulation; probably due to the 15-km distance (15 km) from their barangay to the hospital,” said the physician.

When asked on the condition of the unborn 3-month-old fetus in the victim’s womb, the physician said: “So far the baby is okay but with the status of the mother in bad prognososis, we can’t say (for sure) …”

The area where the family lives is a vast plain described as a lightning belt with similar lightning hits in the past. – THE FREEMAN