Teen injured by lightning will require long-term rehabilitation

Salt Lake City, Utah – After a lightning strike in Sevier County last week, one of the teenagers who was hospitalized has returned home.

Kaileigh Saling, 15, was hiking on Thursday with the youth group as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ excursion with the Saline Stake.

“We all started on our walk, and it was pouring very, very hard,” Kaileigh said. “We could hear thunder and see lightning, but it was coming down super hard.”

That’s when the neighboring lightning struck.

“The person on the other side of the person in the middle of us who was holding an umbrella and so we kind of think that the umbrella kind of attracted the lightning and the lightning either went into the umbrella or near the umbrella,” Kaileigh said.

Fifty children reported being shocked by the lightning bolt. Kaileigh thinks the worst of it went to her and someone else.

“It just felt weird like my body was tingling and it felt really, really weird and so it felt like I was being coddled and held on this cloud and it was just like, I was in mid-air and then I like kind of passed out,” Kaileigh said.

On Wednesday, she claimed to have woken up in under a minute.

“Somebody lifted my head and it felt like all these like bricks and this gravity just pounded on top of me,” Kaileigh said.

According to Kaileigh, she was brought to a Salina parking lot by EMS. She was transported to Primary Children’s Hospital in Lehi from that location.
She claimed that medical professionals looked her over to make sure she had no lightning-related exit or entry wounds. She claims that in the end, she was brought to the Salt Lake hospital campus.

“She has nerve damage on the right side of her body, so her arm and leg tingle or are numb or hurt, she’s got a lot of pain, especially in her arm,” said Rachel Saling, Kaileigh’s mother. “”The fractures in her L5 S1.”

According to Rachel, her daughter also suffered fractures to her L5-S1 vertebrae and a concussion as a result of the incident. She predicts that Kaileigh’s recuperation will require some time.

“In a couple of months, the neurologist will do a test if there hasn’t been any improvement to see if anything is permanent, but we’re hoping that just with time things will improve,” Rachel said.

“I still have quite a few months, if not years to be able to do things like I used to.” added Kaileigh.

According to Kaileigh, she left the hospital on Sunday. She is presently receiving physical and occupational therapy in addition to wearing a back brace.

“I want it to be done as fast as I can as soon as I can and as well as it can,” Kaileigh said.

Kaileigh is happy that the situation wasn’t worse now that she’s back at home and recovering.

“It was scary, but at the same time, I was like, well, at least it didn’t hit one person and at least it didn’t like kill us all,” Kaileigh said.