After lightning strikes a group of teenagers, they face months of recovery

SALT LAKE CITY — All young people who were hospitalized after being struck by lightning have now left the hospital.

Fourteen-year-old Kaileigh Saling, the last of the hospitalized teens, was sent home Sunday evening.

Kaleigh Saling said the lightning struck just inches from where she was walking.

“I heard this huge bang, my ears started ringing, and I was going up and down at the same time,” said Kaileigh Saling.

The force was so strong that, according to Saling, she was thrown into the air.

“When I was laying on the ground, it felt like I was being enveloped in like a cloud or a pillow,” Kaileigh Saling said. “And they lifted my head and I felt like bricks and gravity were just being thrown at me.”

“She was next to the person holding the umbrella when the lightning struck,” said Rachel Saling, Kaileigh’s mother.

Kaileigh Saling’s mother believes the current flowed through an umbrella held by a teenager walking next to Kaileigh Saling.

“(The umbrella) flew out of his hand,” Kaileigh Saling added.

While the boy with the umbrella also suffered shock, the two teenagers walking next to him, Kaileigh Saling and Bo Chapman, suffered more serious injuries and were flown to the hospital, according to Kaileigh Saling.

“The boy with the umbrella must have been right here because her right side was affected,” Rachel Saling said. “(Bo) was on his other side.”

Kaileigh Saling was initially flown to Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Lehi, but was later transferred to the Salt Lake City campus, where her room was next to that of 14-year-old Bo Chapman.

Kaileigh Saling suffered a concussion and a fractured back, a “L5-S1 spinal injury” according to Rachel Saling. The right side of Kaileigh Saling’s body is still shaking from the electric shock.

“It still feels like my body is being pressed against a furnace,” Kaileigh Saling said. “When you touch (my arm), it feels like the arm is being thrown under all the coal and fire, and it just stings while it tingles where it’s burning. It feels like I have tight, tight, tingly bracelets on my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder… it really hurts.”

Kaileigh Saling said walking is difficult because she feels tingling and numbness in her right leg, making it hard for her to maintain balance.

Doctors tell Kaileigh Saling that it will take months for her to fully recover and that she will need physical and occupational therapy.

According to Kaileigh Saling, doctors believe she was not struck by lightning because she has no entry or exit wounds on her body.

Rachel and Kaileigh Saling said they are grateful that everyone survived the potentially fatal incident.

“What happened was more of a blessing,” said Kaileigh Saling. “It was such a big storm, there was lightning everywhere… and it didn’t just hit one person and kill that one person, we all just got a little sting and we were all OK.”

“I am certainly convinced that they were guarded,” Rachel added.

Kaileigh Saling is praying for another miracle: that she will be healthy again before school starts so she can play sports.