© My Fox AustinA neighbor saw the couple's house get struck by lightning and told the family the bolt went from underneath the house and through the roof, leaving noticeable damage
A teenager was left shocked and temporarily unable to walk after she was
struck by lightning while opening the refrigerator inside her Austin home.Macie Martinez was reaching for an apple sauce when lightning struck her home and passed through the kitchen's appliances.
Misty Villarreal, Macie's mother, was in the living room when she heard what sounded like an explosion, and then a loud gut-wrenching scream.
Villarreal said her husband, Anthony, pulled Macie off the fridge and held her while she 'screamed and screamed and at the same time shook', she described on the family's GoFundMe page.
All the lights in the house had gone off when the lightning struck and Villarreal panicked as she was unable to see if her daughter was bleeding.
'I was shaking, screaming, crying because I was so powerless,' she wrote. 'I couldn't help my child.'
Macie described the moment, which happened on Memorial Day, as the 'most painful thing' she has ever experienced in her life.
'Afterwards, I couldn't feel my legs, and I couldn't walk and I was just shaking,' she told
My Fox Austin.
Forty-five minutes before lightning struck, the family was getting reading for a night of movie-watching and playing cards after a tornado warning was lifted and they were able to leave their pantry.Now they were rushing Macie to the hospital.
© My Fox AustinDoctors also found a fern-pattern rash (pictured) consistent with lightning burns on Macie's left shoulder, where they believe the electricity exited her body
Comment: If the recent past is any indication, then such phenomenon in the skies will only increase and become a common indicator that the upper atmosphere and the weather of the earth is changing.