A Haymarket man is recovering after being struck by lightning while riding his motorcycle on Interstate 66.
Noah Fowler, 20, was riding his motorcycle home from Skyline Drive on Saturday, through heavy rain with poor visibility, when he was struck by a bolt of lightning, NBC4 reported.
Erica Sutherland was a passenger in a car driving the opposite direction when she witnessed Fowler fly through the air from the force of the strike. She pulled over and ran to help, calling the paramedics and performing CPR on Fowler from behind for approximately 4 minutes. Other people on the scene stopped to cover Fowler and Sutherland with blankets and clothes to keep them warm.
Fowler asked Sutherland to call his mom, Noelle Fowler, who arrived on the scene before paramedics took him to the hospital.
“Hearing a phone call from a fearful mother and her child has to be the most heart-wrenching thing, from one parent to another,” Sutherland said on a funding campaign for him.
The lightning traveled through his metal helmet, burning his skin where he wore a silver necklace and causing damage to his eardrum, WTOP reported. After a surgery on Wednesday to transplant skin to the burned areas, and he returned home from the hospital on Thursday.
Sutherland set up a Spotfund to raise money for Fowler’s recovery, which has gathered over $3,700 of the $20,000 goal so far, from over 50 donors.
Though they were strangers before the accident, Sutherland has remained close with the Fowler family through Noah’s recovery.
“Noah has forever changed my life! He says that I am his hero but what he doesn’t know is that he is mine,” Sutherland said. “I will forever have a bond with Noah and his family!”
Feature image courtesy NBC4
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