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20. 07. 09. - 16:00

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20. 07. 09. - 16:00

Family survives chimney lightning strike

By David Rogers

An Upper Austrian escaped unhurt after a lightning bolt struck their home, flew down their chimney and sent an explosion ripping through the house.

Gerhard Strassmair said his family had just finished eating dinner at their home in Vorchdorf, Upper Austria when the strike hit.

He said plaster had been ripped off the walls, objects and shards of glass thrown across rooms and the house had filled with smoke.

Strassmair said: "Glass splinters flew through the dining room, the telephone sockets were ripped out of the wall and the telephone answering machine was thrown more than 10 metres."

But neither he, nor his wife nor their three children aged 22, 20 and eight were injured.

He admitted his house did not have any lightning rods to run a strike around the house away from danger. He said a neighbouring electrician had told him
rods could not prevent a lightning bolt from going down a chimney.

The strike came just days after a barn burnt to the ground last week in Upper Austria after it was struck by lightning.

One hundred and ninety fire fighters from 12 departments spent hours battling the blaze at a farm in Bad Zell in Freistadt district.

A 67-year-old farmer and his wife, 62, were unhurt, and neighbours and firemen managed to save 22 cows that had been in the barn when the lightning struck.

And just a day before twenty-one footballers were hospitalised after being struck by lightning in the middle of a game in Leoben, upper Styria.

Eyewitnesses said the lightning had come "out of the blue" at 9pm and been followed by torrential rain that had stopped ambulances and medical helicopters from getting to the scene for an hour afterwards.

Police said three of the 21 injured players – all male – were in critical condition.

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