Bryon Lacey is feeling lucky after surviving a lightning strike Friday evening at Foster Lake.
“I was sitting on a stump out by the water,” Lacey, 40, said. “I was catching fish left and right. It was like catching fish in a barrel.
“This big dark cloud started coming over. I could see it swirling underneath, I thought, man I’m going to get to see a tornado form.”
Lacey climbed up the hill from his fishing hole near Lewis Cemetery.
“I could hear thunder in the distance,” Lacey said. “All of a sudden I saw white … like looking into a torch.”
He was apparently blasted back down the hill when a lightning bolt struck his shoulder. He came to resting against a stump along the water’s edge.
His clothes were still smoking, his hair was singed and the hat he was wearing was on fire.
He believes the lightning struck his shoulder, leaving two bubbles, and bounced through his head.
Unable to walk yet, Lacey crawled, with his tackle box and fishing pole, up to North River Road where he tried to get some help. He was walking like Quasimodo, so he figures drivers thought he was drunk. They would wave and laugh at him.
Lacey walked to the intersection of Foster Dam Road and North River Road, a popular fishing hole. He found a woman on the bank and a man and child in a canoe there. He told the woman he thought he had just been struck by lightning and asked if she could call for help. She flagged down a truck.
The driver called for an ambulance, which responded at 6:32 p.m. The woman gave Lacey a drink of water while the ambulance was en route. From there, he was taken to Lebanon Community Hospital. He stayed overnight with his wife, Stephanie Hatch at his side. Doctors ran several tests to check his internal organs.
“Everything’s greener,” Lacey said. “Everything’s bluer. I guess I could have come close to death. I guess I didn’t. I love my wife more.… I’m a happier person. Right afterward, I did say a prayer to God … I kind of asked for forgiveness. Can’t really say I was born again, but I did talk to the man upstairs and kind of get some things checked between me and him.”
In a coincidence, the lightning strike occurred on Natural History Day for survivors of lightning strikes, Hatch said. “Everybody’s telling him to go buy a lottery ticket.”
Physically, “I’m A-okay,” Lacey said. “I wanted to go fishing today (Monday), but she wouldn’t let me go.”
“I want him to wait a month, but he’s going this weekend with his dad,” Hatch said. He still sometimes gets the shakes, and he’s still dealing with memory loss and confusion though Lacey disagrees about that.
“I’m glad to be alive, very glad to be alive,” Lacey said. “I love my old lady. She was great. She was with me the whole time, and I love her that much more.”
Lacey and Hatch have lived in Sweet Home since December 1999. He is between jobs right now. He has three sons, Brett, Ian and Travis, who live in Hood River.
Lacey plans to go return to his favorite fishing hole and he doesn’t plan to share it.
“I’m a Lacey,” he said. “Lacey’s are tougher than that.… That is my fishing spot. Ain’t nobody allowed to fish there.”