| Aug 21, 2019


The day started out calmly enough. Brad Telford, who has lived on the Campbell Road near Sydenham with his wife Megan and their 2 1/2 year old son John for about a year and half, did some indoor chores last Saturday morning (August 10) because it was raining.

When the weather cleared up, he went outside to do some yard work. The weather, as far as he could tell at the time, was fine, as he began filling some bird feeders with birdseed in the yard. He was listening to some music through ear buds that were connected to his phone, which was in his pocket. It was all pretty normal Saturday stuff.

He did not know what hit him.

“All I knew was that I had been blown back from the bird feeder and that I was on the ground and I felt that I was paralysed. I could smell burning flesh. I was trying to move my legs but I could not move them at all,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday evening (August 15).

He was all alone, and thought he might be done for.

But Megan heard the bang and saw the flash of lightening, as had their neighbour Chad Hotner. It took a minute or two to locate him, but when they did Chad, who has a military background, took control.

Brad’s shirt and shorts were gone, as were his phone and ear buds. Chad told Megan and his own son Milo to get some blankets and call 911.

“Fortunately, our son John slept through the whole ordeal,” said Megan later.

They were pretty concerned, because of the extreme nature of the lightening strike and the severity of some of the burns on Brad’s body, particularly a diagonal burn across his torso where the cord for the ear buds had been laying. Also, by this time a storm was really brewing and the rain was coming.

Within a few minutes, the first responders were on the scene and the system kicked into gear. Members of the South Frontenac Fire Department, some in their own vehicles, were the first to arrive, and one of them informed Brad that he is a full-time paramedic when he isn’t volunteering with the fire department.

“After he said that and I saw what was going on, I began to feel that maybe I would live through this,” Brad recalls, “at least I knew that the right things were going to be done.”

The firefighters prepared him to be lifted onto a stretcher and when the Frontenac Paramedics arrived, they helped lift him onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, which rushed him to KGH.

“When we got to KGH there was a whole medical crew waiting to treat me. The medical team at KGH contacted the burn unit at Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto for advice, and soon decided that it was best to send Brad there. He was taken to the airport and flown to Pearson on an ORNGE plane, and then whisked by ambulance to Sunnybrook.

“They did everything, looked internally to see if there was any damage, got my electrolytes straightened around and evaluated my burns. On Wednesday they told me they did not think they needed to do any skin grafts and that as long as I changed my dressings every day I would heal up on my own.

Five days after being struck by lighting, Brad was back home, still in considerable pain and in need of a few weeks of healing, but home, safe and sound with his family.

His main emotions are relief and gratitude.

“From the volunteer firefighters, the paramedics and medical teams at KGH and Sunnybrook, I received the best care I could imagine. I’m very grateful for everything they have done. We are very lucky to have these kinds of services in our communities,” he said.

He also admitted that, in the past, he was not one to take every precaution during electrical storms, but that will change in the future, even though he could not have foreseen the strike that hit him on this occasion.

(Postscript – Megan reported to us on Monday (August 19) that Brad’s “burns are healing beautifully. It’s amazing really.”)

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