Florida Biker is Tougher than Lightning

He was pale and shaky, but otherwise a motorcyclist who took a lightning strike during Sunday’s thunderstorms is OK.

That’s the word from the gas station manager in St. Petersburg who witnessed the unusual event. The man, WFLA is reporting, and his friends decided to ride out the storm under the awning of the BP Gas Station on 49th Street and 5 Avenue. As they were waiting out the rain, lightning struck, taking out the station’s gas pumps and the man.

“I hear the huge sound, and I jumped outside to see what was wrong,” gas station owner Matt Yaghoubi told WFLA. “And I see the bikers and they said he got hit. He got hit.”

While paramedics were called to the scene, the man, who remains unidentified, refused a trip to the hospital, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

While the man in Sunday’s strike was lucky, that’s not always the case in Florida. The state leads the nation in the number of lightning deaths per year, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Between 1959 and 2013, the state logged 468 lightning-related deaths. Texas came in second with 216.