Weekend America

A Lightning Strike Miracle in Maine

Suzie Lechtenberg

JUNE 28, 2008

Lightning dances over a city

(iStockPhoto)

The elements are making headlines this weekend -- while New Yorkers are awed by man-made waterfalls, residents of Winfield, Mo., are still trying to hold back the Mississippi where levees broke on Friday. But in Northern California this weekend, firefighters are praying for water. Lightning strikes have set off hundreds of wildfires, threatening homes, power grids and state parks.

These California fires have caused a lot of destruction -- however, not all lightning is bad, and we want to share with you an example: Edwin Robinson.

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Lee Robinson: My name is Lee Robinson and this story is about my father, Edwin Robinson.

Bob Gustavson: I'm Bob Gustavson, the pastor at Emmaus Lutheran Church in Falmouth, Maine, and Edwin Robinson was a parishioner there when I first came in 1994. Ed was a remarkable story of someone who had had an accident in his truck and lost his sight and most of his hearing and suddenly had it restored.

Robinson: He had adopted a chicken that somehow had found his way to him, and he had named the chicken Tuck-Tuck because, well, as best as he could make out, that's the sound that a chicken makes: tuck, tuck, tuck... And that's why he was out there. He was walking around the garage calling Tuck-Tuck. And the bird was inside the garage looking out at him, trying to figure out why he was out there, just standing in the rain, during a severe thunderstorm.

Gustavson: I guess it was thundering and lightning and raining and Ed was crawling around out in the backyard looking for Tuck-Tuck on his hands and knees. He finally found the bird and was struck by lightning.

Robinson: The lightning bounced off the tree and went directly into his hearing aids, and blew the hearing aids right out of his ears. The connecting wire was burned completely off. And after my dad had been hit by lightning, he lay on the ground for several minutes and he finally got up and went back in the house. My mom came over to him because he looked, you know, dazed, and he said, "I think I've been hit by lightning." And she kind of said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and he said, "No, really, I can read that plaque on the wall."

Gustavson: He began reading a plaque of some sort that was up on the wall. It said something like, "God can't be everywhere, that's why he created grandparents." His wife thought maybe he had just memorized it, but it turns out he was actually reading it.

Robinson: So she said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and "You already know what it says, so that doesn't mean a thing. How about looking at the clock over there on the wall and telling me what time it is?" And he looked at the clock and said, "It's six minutes after five." He got his sight back to 20/20. He got his hearing back. All of his life he had been completely bald and several weeks later there was hair that started to grow on his head.

Gustavson: Not only was his eyesight restored and his hearing restored, but he started to grow hair again. It's hard not to say that it's not miraculous.

Robinson: I think if you talk to anybody else that was around when this incident happened, they would say that it was actually a miracle. I guess you could say there is a bit of luck in there, yes. Otherwise, he literally should have been killed by the lightning, yes.

• Music Bridge:

  Wigwam

  Artist: Bob Dylan

  CD: Self Portrait (Columbia)

• Are you dreaming of politics?

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  Send us stories of your recent political dreams.

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