Monday, October 1, 2012

SCARY LIGHTNING

Once again I haven't posted for a while. Not a lot of picture taking moments or excitement lately.  That is until today.  We had a scary experience today and since this is like a journal for us I think I should write it down. We are all fine.  Anyway, Lucy, Paul and I went out to the beach this afternoon just to walk around and look for shark teeth (that is one of our fun new hobbies). Anyway, we hadn't been out there too long, and there was suddenly a blinding white flash of lightning right by us.  It came out of nowhere.  It was not raining and we hadn't had any lightning or thunder -or we wouldn't have been out there- and there were a few darker clouds but they weren't that close by.  So we were very startled and looked where it flashed and saw a man lying on the ground about 30 feet away from us. We started running over to him because he was lying very still, and Paul called out to someone to call 911-we didn't have our phones on us- and when we got to him, he was not doing well. He immediately started turning blue and wasn't breathing, so I started doing CPR.  We asked Lucy to go wait a little ways away in the safest place we could find for her.  She remained calm, watched for the emergency vehicles and did a great job.  A couple more people showed up and Paul ran to get Lucy and show the paramedics where we were (since the beach was down an embankment), and he helped reassure the guy's teenage son who was freaking out. We did CPR for a few minutes and then the man started gasping and I checked and his heart had started beating and he started looking better, although he was still in very bad condition.  It was super scary.  He still couldn't talk and his shirt was burned all over, but he was semi-conscious, so we just tried to keep him calm and still until paramedics finally got there after about 10-12 minutes. It was a really scary experience that I hope I don't have to experience again, but I was glad I was there to help and was relieved to watch him improving.  Man, this lightning has already been one of the most nerve-racking things for us to deal with these past few months.  Apparently Florida has the most lightning strikes of any state (wish we would have known that), and we don't love the lightning here.  Another boat in our marina was hit by lightning last month and it does major damage to a boat.  Is it time to leave Florida yet???

So I will try to get my mind off of that and put up a few photos from the past week.


So, as I mentioned, this is our new hobby we love.  Finding sharks teeth on the beach.  We are finally getting good at it too.  We played at the beach a lot last week.  The boogie boarding was lots of fun!




Yes, that is my head. Catching a good wave.
 
 
Also last week, Paul and Jack helped a friend of ours we met here at the marina to sail his catamaran up to Brunswick, Georgia. His wife had gone home to Vancouver and he didn't want to sail alone. They were gone a couple of days and it all went fine. This is Paul and Jack with our friend John Michele (he is French) and was taken at Fernandina Beach where they stayed the first night.
 

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