Lightning strikes moving truck on Florida highway (Video)

• In an impressive scene, lightning struck a moving truck.
• The truck was struck by lightning as it traveled on a highway in Florida.
• The incident was recorded in a video filmed by a vehicle behind it.

It sounds like a scene out of a movie, but it really happened in Florida. A family who was returning home from their vacation experienced a dramatic moment when lightning struck their moving truck. The impressive event was recorded in a video filmed by a vehicle that was behind them.

Michaelle May Whalen, who shot the footage, told Storyful that her husband and three children were traveling in the truck in front of her near Tampa in early July when lightning struck that vehicle, according to Fox Weather.

The truck was «fried» by lightning

Michaelle May Whalen said that none of the occupants of the vehicle were injured. However, she added, the truck was «completely fried» when it was struck by lightning. She, in turn, explained that her family was on the way home after enjoying a vacation when she noticed the lightning and began recording.

«It started to storm and I thought the lightning was neat, so I was trying to snap a picture of the lightning and missed every time,» Michaelle May Whalen told the outlet. «So my son-in-law suggested I slow-motion video record, and that’s when I captured the event on camera.»

The lightning capital of the US (click on the image to see the video)

Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, with the highest density of lightning and the highest frequency of thunderstorms, especially in summer. Research by Vaisala show that the state has an average of nearly 1.2 million lightning strikes a year, Fox Weather explained.

Additionally, Florida leads the country in lightning-related deaths, with 49 in recent years, according to the National Lightning Safety Council. This is more than double that of the next state on the list: Texas, with 22 deaths, according to Fox.

The driver was amazed

A similar incident happened last year in China, when a driver was totally stunned when lightning struck a truck that was driving on a highway during heavy rain. The lightning strikes had been unleashed during a storm that hit Zhejiang province, and were captured by the vehicle’s dash cam, Fox News reported in July 2021. The driver was uninjured and his vehicle sustained only minor damage that included a broken side mirror, the report said.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that odds of being struck by lightning are around one in 500,000, but still take the necessary precautions.