After lightning strikes a group of teenagers, one of them will have to wait months to recover

SALT LAKE CITY – All the teenagers hospitalized after being shocked by lightning have been released from the hospital.

Kaileigh Saling, 14, the last of the hospitalized teenagers, was sent home Sunday night.

Kaleigh Saling said the lightning struck inches from where she was walking.

“I heard a huge boom and my ears started ringing, I went up and down at the same time,” Kaileigh Saling said.

The force was so strong that Saling said she was thrown into the air.

“I was on the ground, like I was wrapped in a cloud or a pillow,” Kaileigh Saling said. “They lifted my head up and it felt like bricks and gravity were coming down on me.”

“She was next to the person holding the umbrella where the lightning struck,” said Rachel Saling, Kaileigh’s mother.

Kaileigh Saling’s mother believes the current passed through an umbrella, held by a teenager walking next to Kaileigh Saling.

“(The umbrella) slipped out of his hand,” Kaileigh Saling added.

While the boy holding the umbrella was also in shock, the two teenagers walking on either side of him, Kaileigh Saling and Bo Chapman, suffered more serious injuries and were airlifted to the hospital, according to Kaileigh Saling.

“The boy with the umbrella should have been right there, because it was his right side that was hit,” Rachel Saling said. “(Bo) was on the other side.”

Kaileigh Saling was initially flown to Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Lehi, but was later transferred to the Salt Lake City campus where her room was next to 14-year-old Bo Chapman.

Kaileigh Saling suffered a concussion and fractured her back, an “L5-S1 back injury” according to Rachel Saling. The right side of Kaileigh Saling’s body is still in shock from the electric shock.

“I always feel like my body is pressed against an oven,” Kaileigh Saling said. “If you touch (my arm), it feels like it’s being thrown under all the coals and fire and it stings and gives a tingling sensation where it’s burning. It feels like I have tight, tight, tingling bracelets on my wrist, elbow, shoulder… it really hurts.”

Kaileigh Saling said it was difficult for her to walk because her right leg felt tingling and numb, making it difficult for her to maintain her balance.

Doctors tell Kaileigh Saling it will be months before she fully recovers and will need physical and occupational therapy.

According to Kaileigh Saling, doctors believe she was not struck by lightning because she has no entry or exit burns on her body.

Rachel and Kaileigh Saling said they were grateful everyone survived what could have been a deadly incident.

“What happened was a blessing,” Kaileigh Saling said. “It was such a violent storm, there was lightning everywhere… and it didn’t just hit one person and kill that person, we all got stung a little bit and we all came out okay.”

“I definitely think they were being watched,” Rachel added.

Kaileigh Saling is praying for another miracle: to recover before school starts so she can play sports.