Lightning narrowly misses 16-year-old boy filming thunderstorm

A 16-year-old Monmouth County boy says he was nearly struck by lightning when he was outside filming Monday's thunderstorm. Ethan Riozzi-Bodine says that he was riding his bike on the way home to beat

News 12 Staff

Jul 27, 2016, 3:12 AM

Updated 2,921 days ago

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A 16-year-old Monmouth County boy says he was nearly struck by lightning when he was outside filming Monday's thunderstorm.
Ethan Riozzi-Bodine says that he was riding his bike on the way home to beat out the storm when the chain popped off of his bike in Bradley Beach. He says that he started to fix his bike and then decided to start recording the lightning on his cellphone.
The teen says that one of the strikes came dangerously close.
"My whole body was vibrating, and as soon as I felt the electric pulse, I jumped up. I didn't really know what was going on at first," he says.
Riozzi-Bodine was taking shelter under an overhang on the sidewalk when the strike happened.
"It wasn't until I saw the video that I realized, OK, we need to get him to the ER," says Elaine Riozzi-Bodine, the teen's mother.
Doctors found that Riozzi-Bodine had high levels of the enzyme creatine in his system. They say that this happens sometimes after a trauma like a heart attack. Doctors say that the teen was lucky that he wasn't directly hit.
"They could not believe that he walked away from this, that he did not have any significant injuries," says his mother.
"You always think, 'I'm invincible. I'm 16,' you think that's never going to happen, but things like that do actually happen," Riozzi-Bodine says.
Riozzi-Bodine, who is a lifeguard, says that he will now use caution during lightning storms, especially while working on the beach.


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