PHOENIX — A 12-year-old girl was hospitalized Saturday after being struck by lightning while playing outside her home in the West Valley.
Her heart stopped, but her father got to her immediately and performed CPR to resuscitate her.
Kevin Foster, with Valleywise Health, works with burn and lighting strike patients and says that the girl's father and Fire Department were instrumental in saving her life.
Steven Jorgensen was only 50 feet away from his 12-year-old daughter Ella when a bolt of lightning struck her as she was playing outside of her grandparents' Sun City West home.
Jorgensen, a Marine Corps veteran serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, used his years of training and performed CPR on his daughter three times, bringing her back to life each time.
She was then taken by paramedics to Banner Thunderbird for initial treatment and eventually to Valleywise Health Medical Center for minor burns she suffered after the strike.
According to Foster, since that time, she has recovered very well. She has one small superficial burn likely a contact area/entrance wound, however, she has no acute injuries or burns to worry about.
She even tells her father that she's excited to tell her friends what happened when she goes back to school.
"I broke the news to her that she got struck by lightning. She didn't believe me at first" Jorgensen says. "Once they got the tubes out and her mom told her again, she just looked at her mom and hugged her and said I'm going to have a cool story to tell forever."
Foster says that the main concern with lightning strike victims is the amount of electricity that comes in contact with the body. It often causes burns and cardiac problems and has enough force to launch the victim which can result in further injury if the victim survives. He also says that damage to the nervous system is common.
Dr. Forster also advised that getting struck by lightning is extremely uncommon, but if you can see lightning or hear thunder, you can get struck.
Ella's expected to be released from the hospital in the next few days, if not sooner.
