A pair of rubber thongs have been credited with saving Tiahnee Kerewaro's life after she was struck by lightning in her front yard last week.

Tiahnee was told by medical staff she was lucky to be alive when lightning struck the umbrella she was holding while walking from her car to her house eight days ago.

The 20-year-old Airds woman was thrown more than a metre by the strike, which entered her body through her thumb and exited via her shoulder.

Doctors told her the only reason she wasn't more seriously injured was because she was wearing rubber thongs and was holding the umbrella's wooden handle. They said rubber and timber didn't conduct electricity well.

"The lightning was that powerful it threw me back into a car parked outside my house and I passed out for a while," she said. "The umbrella went in one direction and I went in the other.

"My hand was frozen like I was still holding the umbrella. My arm and shoulder were completely numb and I couldn't talk."

But the effects of the electrical charge on Tiahnee's organs were the major concern for doctors at Campbelltown Hospital.

"They monitored my heart and I had to have blood tests done to measure the level of electricity through my body. I have to go back and have more just be sure it's all back to normal," she said.

"A nurse on duty that night was from the Northern Territory and said it was really common up there. She was the one who found the entry and exit points. She said lightning strikes were her specialty."

Tiahnee said she never expected she would become one of the few people struck by lightning.

"Take it from me, don't go out in an electrical storm, especially with an umbrella," she said.

"Like everyone, I thought this would never happen to me ... I've thought 'I'll be right' and then that happened."

Between five and 10 people in Australia die each year as a result of being struck by lightning.