Florida man's truck totaled by lightning strike caught on dash cam

Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A Florida man's dashboard camera was rolling when a bolt of lightning struck his brand-new 2020 Ford Ranger truck and put the vehicle "in intensive care."

Jack Foraker said he was approaching Big Carlos Pass in Lee County while on his way home to Estero when he drove into the storm.

"I saw a few people that were just stragglers leaving the beach. And I said to myself, those are the type of people who get hit by lightning because they're just leaving too late, and continued going. Turns out, they weren't the people that got hit by lightning, I was," Foraker told WINK-TV.

Foraker's dashboard camera was recording when a bolt of lightning struck his vehicle, causing it to shut down.

"Just sounded like a shotgun blast to the back of my truck. And then yeah, it was. It was pretty scary," he said. "My windshield wiper stopped, lost my power brakes, lost my power steering."

The driver, who was not injured, was able to pull over to the side of the road.

The truck, which only had 4,000 miles on it, was badly damaged.

"Pretty much put my truck in intensive care," Foraker said.

He said the truck was in the shop for 40 days while mechanics tried to revive it, but he is now resigned to simply buying a replacement vehicle.

Foraker said the incident should serve as a warning to others of the danger posed by lightning.

"You're not to be afraid of the sharks, you don't have to be afraid of the stingrays. You're going to be afraid of lightning because it kills people here," he said.

The danger of lightning was on full display last week in California's San Bernardino National Forest, where firefighters extinguished five separate tree fires sparked by lightning strikes from a single storm. Witness Michael Bogan captured video of a tree splitting in half at the trunk after being struck near the Big Bear Airport.