Spared by a strike:                  See the photo gallery
Ernie and Zach get zapped

By Rich Stromberg, June 19, 2006 (Note: the writer spent nine years with Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council on similar rescue and responded with La Veta Fire Department on the rescue of Zach and Ernie..) 

CORDOVA PASS, COLO. -- This true tale of two 15-year-old boys on West Spanish Peak will blow your socks off. Those who doubt this should bear in mind that what actually happened blew the shoes off one of those boys and nearly blew him from the present into permanent past tense.

Storm clouds formed early that day. Conditions were right for a thunderstorm by 11:40 a.m. A firefighter from La Veta, Colo. had just finished scanning Huerfano County for smoke after the previous day’s thunderstorms and noticed an anvil-shaped cloud over the Spanish Peaks. This storm had formed more than an hour earlier than any the previous week. Ten minutes later a page went out. Two hikers had been struck by lightning on West Spanish Peak.

Scott and Kelly O’Neal live in Aledo, Texas – west of Fort Worth. They’ve had a condo at Cuchara Ski Valley for 16 years. Their son, Zach, made his first trip to the area when he was three weeks old. Zach’s friend, Ernie Elbert, had joined the family on this latest trip.

“Zach had never climbed West Peak,” Scott said, “but he always wanted to. This was the first trip he had a friend go with him. They said ‘we want to climb West Peak’ and we said ‘great.’ In La Veta we asked a forest person about the dangers. They told them to get on the trail by 8 a.m. and get on down off the peak by 12:00 or 12:30.”

The next morning, Scott and Kelly took Zach and Ernie up to the Cordova Pass trail head and they started hiking at around 7:45. Scott and Kelly hiked with them till about a quarter mile before the trail hits timber line and sent them on their way.

“We went back to the condo, which has a deck with a clear view of West Peak,” Scott said. “We had an old telescope set it up hoping we might be able to see them on top. We did see them. They called on the cell phone and said ‘we made it.’ We were watching them. They looked like ants on the face of the moon. We asked them to walk toward and away from each other to confirm it was them. They were probably 12 miles as the crow flies.”

The family, which included Scott’s parents, Richard and Gayle O’Neal, watched them a few minutes and then stopped looking long enough to put some hotdogs on the grill. Then Ernie called back on the cell phone and told Gayle they had been hit by lightning.

“Zach’s not moving and my legs hurt and I can hardly get to my feet,” Ernie said.

“Ernie honey,” Gayle said, “don’t tease us.” She handed the phone to Scott and said “I don’t know if they’re teasing or not. Tell them to get off that mountain.” Gayle later said “these boys are big cut ups. You know how kids are. We had just watched them and not seen a cloud in the sky. For something to happen that quickly is so unbelievable. We were in close contact and then it happened all of a sudden.”

“This is serious,” Ernie told Scott. “Zach’s hurt. My legs won’t work. Get help immediately.”

When the family realized Ernie was serious, they called 911 and Scott jumped on a motorcycle and headed up to the trail head.

“I took off on the motorcycle and rode as fast as I could,” Scott said.^[1] “I continued on past the trail. I thought they might make an exception.^[2] I rode to just above timberline. I’d never been past there. I got off the bike at timberline. When I first pulled up, I thought I might have seen those boys way up high, but I might have been hallucinating. I went as fast and hard as I could, which wasn’t very fast at that altitude.^[3] I guess I went half a mile up. I kept thinking I was near the top, but then I would find a new summit.”

The rest of the family knew the boys’ condition by that time, but Scott was out of communication while riding and hiking up to Zach and Ernie. Gayle and Richard had been talking with Ernie on the cell phone.

At one time Ernie told them “Hurry! Please hurry! Send someone. He’s bleeding. He’s not breathing.” Gayle told him they were getting there as fast as they could. “He said Zach was cold,” Gayle said. “We told him to lay on him to warm him up. The next time we spoke, Ernie said ‘We’re doing better now. We’re trying to come down the mountain. We knew that at least Zach was alive. My husband could hear Zach moaning in the background.

Zach remembers nothing about the lightning strike. He remembers being on top of the mountain, the hike up, how spectacular the view was and putting his name on the peak register. The two were erecting a little monument in the shape of a cross on the stones. The first thing he remembers is trying to get on his feet and falling back down. Ernie told him eight times he had been hit, but Zach didn’t believe him.

Ernie didn’t notice any signs that they were about to be struck. They saw one lightning bolt way off to the south and then noticed that it clouded up instantly. Zach told Ernie “let’s get moving.” Then the bolt hit.

Ernie doesn’t recall a flash of light. There was a deafening boom and then his legs collapsed out from under him. They just ceased to function and he fell flat on his back. After the blast there was a strange noise that sounded almost like a camera shutter repeatedly clicking. Ernie thought Zach was unconscious for about three minutes. He performed CPR^[4] and then saw Zach’s lips starting to move.

Zach asked “What’s happened to me?”  Ernie said they needed to stay and wait for help, but Zach said “I’m uncomfortable and cold and want to get off the mountain because I don’t want to get hit again.” Rain and lightning had continued on the mountain and in the region. Zach and Ernie said a prayer and started to move down the mountain.

“Probably 45 minutes after I got off the motorcycle I heard Ernie call my name and saw the two way above me,” Scott said. “They looked terrible - like they just came back from Iraq. I smelled them from 30 yards away - burnt skin, hair and nylon. I wanted to hug my son because I spent about an hour and a half not knowing if he was dead or alive, but he scolded me because of the burns.”

“Zach had a lot of blood on his face and red dots on his face,” Scott said. “He looked like someone in a motorcycle wreck on a gravel road.^[5] He had an eye swollen shut. His jacket was standing up on his back – stiff from being melted. They had pulled his shredded pants off. He was in boxer shorts. They looked tattered and singed. Zach’s hair was singed all over his body. Ernie looked pretty good. His features looked swollen - his lips and his nose. He looked rough.”

Zach had been hit by a bolt in the back of the head and had burns down his entire backside. Most were second-degree, but they ranged from first- to third-degree. He also had an exit wound on his eye from the lightning. Ernie had first- and second-degree burns from his waist down on the back of his legs.[^6]

From this point, Scott spoke with La Veta EMT Mark Brunner on Ernie’s cell phone every five minutes. The EMTs told him to help Zach off the mountain as best he could and stayed apprised of the boys’ condition. Ernie had holes in the sides of his shoes from the electrical current, but Zach’s shoes were actually blown off, making the descent very slow. Zach also had places on his shoulders and back of the neck where his t-shirt melted into his skin. It took about 45 minutes to get down to timberline. By then they were cold from sleet and rain.

The EMTs arrived around this time and got Zach covered up and warm. More rescuers soon arrived and moved Zach a bit further down the mountain. There was debate about whether to keep going down or wait for a helicopter. EMTs were concerned about internal injuries and for a while, they had Scott gather firewood in case they needed to stay put for an extended period. A transport litter arrived and Zach was strapped in for a carry down the trail.

Fortunately, the weather cleared enough that the LifeGuard pilot felt comfortable landing in a nearby meadow that was right at the altitude and load limit for the aircraft. The team carried him about 100 yards where Zach was given morphine and IV fluids and loaded on the helicopter. Ernie was treated and brought down the trail on a four-wheeler while Scott rode back down on his motorcycle.

During this time, the rest of the family drove up to the trailhead and waited with some of the rescue personnel.

“I was just praying for God’s mercy,” Gayle said. “I was in shear fear and disbelief and praying that somehow those kids would be fine. We were shivering and the EMTs started to wrap us in blankets. It was a long, tedious wait. One of the EMTs took my phone and was talking with Ernie to have him look at Zach’s whole body for other signs of injuries. Then we waited with the helicopter pilot and waited … and waited … and waited."

When the rescuers arrived at the trail head with Ernie, the rest of the family got their first glimpse of what had happened.

“I had no idea till we saw those clothes,” Gayle said. “I burst into tears. It blows my mind. The fact that Zach was able to walk was just a miracle. What went through my mind was that it would be impossible for someone who wore these clothes to survive. They were melted and unrecognizable.

Zach’s flight to the hospital in Pueblo lasted about 20 minutes while the family drove Ernie, reuniting with Zach two hours later.

“I was fearful of him flying off the mountain on a helicopter,” Scott said. “No one in family has been on a helicopter. I was thinking and praying ‘please God, let this helicopter trip go safely.’ But the pilot has been doing this since 1983, so I felt we were in pretty good hands. When we got to the hospital, Kelly had a feeling of total euphoria. If Zach had a limb missing we would have been just as happy to see him. Our emotions ran the entire gamut that day from total despair to total elation.”

The biggest concern in the hospital was internal damage. Zach and Ernie were kept in the ICU the first night and spent the second night in the pediatric ward.

“When you work out, your muscles get sore,” Scott said. “With electricity, you get more than that. Lots of toxins build up that can make sludge that can fill up in the kidneys and cause them to fail. Zach also has a busted eardrum that should heal itself.”

Next came the job of breaking the news to Ernie’s parents. Ernie wanted to wait until he got cleared at the hospital so they wouldn’t worry. Scott thought Ernie would be released after a half hour of observation, but they soon realized that his condition was more severe than just the external injuries.

“When we realized he was staying overnight, I told his father we had an accident, but he’s okay,” Scott said. “He has burns from waist down. He’s going to be fine but they wanted to keep him for observation.”

At this point, most of the danger had passed, but no one was joking – except Ernie and Zach. While in the hospital, he boys kept asking the nurse when they were going to die. The joked between themselves a lot too.

“Zach, why couldn’t you just be a man and take the whole hit instead of sharing it?” Ernie asked.

“You couldn’t even take the wimpy end of the strike,” Zach replied.^[7]

Gayle and Richard O’Neal saw Ernie at the trail head, but they were taking car of their granddaughters and didn’t see Zach till he came home from the hospital.

“He came home the evening of July 4,” Gayle said. “I have to tell you I couldn’t go to sleep that night. He looked that bad to me. He could hardly move and he was in pain. Today if you saw him, you wouldn’t believe it. The healing is miraculous. The charred skin is gone. It’s hardly going to be noticeable. He’s making a miraculous recovery.  We were spared a great tragedy.”

Someone asked Scott is he thought God sent that bolt into his son’s head.

“It’s just a part of nature,” Scott said. “I don’t think he sent a bolt of lightning to these boys. The world is full of hazards and lightning is one of them. I believe God gave them strength, protected them and spared them.”

Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any permanent physical damage. Zach’s eardrum will eventually heal and the burns continue to fade.

“There will be permanent effects, but not negative,” Scott said. “This made these boys into men. It probably bonded the two for life. It renewed their faith in God, in each other and in the goodness of people.”

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