Video of lightning striking local man's truck goes viral

Jul. 11—TIPTON — Ed Whalen said he and his family are used to flying under the radar in Tipton, where they've lived quietly for the last 10 years.

But that's tough to do when a video goes viral of your truck being struck by lightning while driving 75-mph on the interstate.

That's just what happened July 1 when Whalen and his family were on vacation in Tampa, Florida.

Whalen and three of his kids had just crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge from St. Petersburg when a lightning blast struck his truck, sizzling all the electrical wiring inside.

"There's this flash of light and you heard a bunch of sizzling and popping and then a loud boom," he said. "It happened so fast. It was just insane."

Filming it all was Whalen's wife, Michaelle, who was driving behind them in a van with her son in-law.

Whalen said Michaelle loves storms, so when it started pouring and lightning, she couldn't help but try to snap some pictures with her phone. She was having trouble capturing the lightning, though, so her son in-law suggested taking a slow-motion video.

Moments later, her video caught some rare footage of a full lightning strike just yards in front of her. Unfortunately, it just happened to be striking her husband's truck.

Whalen said when the bolt hit, the air around them buzzed, and the hairs on his arm were standing straight up.

He said no one felt like they had been injured, but they later discovered they had bruises on their arms and chests. Whalen said his leg muscles were rock hard for two hours and they hurt for days afterward.

He and the kids all felt dazed and confused for about 20 minutes and had intense headaches the rest of the day.

After the lightning strike, the truck immediately died, forcing Whalen to coast until he could pull off to the side of the interstate.

"My wife was hysterical and crying, because she thought we had been hurt," he said. "I told her 'We're fine, we're fine.'"

The bolt also somehow jumped to a nearby Chevrolet Impala driven by a sheriff's deputy, which caused the cruiser to fritz out and lose power.

As soon as everyone was safely off the highway, Whalen's son in-law called 911. Soon, paramedics and state troopers were on scene. Whalen and the kids were medically cleared, and the truck was towed from the scene.

Whalen's son joked they all needed to keep an eye on themselves for the next few days to see if they developed any superpowers.

The next day, when they were still in Florida, Whalen posted his wife's video on his Facebook page and another page on which he's a member. His daughter shared it on TikTok.

Within days, the posts had all gone viral, and messages from media outlets all around Florida requesting interviews with Whalen poured in.

"We were all like, 'Holy crap,' because we were seeing the video pop up in these different places," Whalen said. "And it was kind of fun seeing it pop up in a new place every day online."

The family arrived back in Tipton on July 3, and the media attention has been nonstop ever since.

Whalen said he's done seven interviews so far, including with the Weather Channel and a news outlet in Germany. He said his son in-law saw the video show up on a news segment from an Hispanic outlet.

Since then, it's gotten hard to fly under the radar in Tipton.

Whalen said the first time he took his dog out for a walk after returning home, he only made it two blocks before everyone in the neighborhood stopped him to ask about the lightning strike.

"It took me two hours to get back home because people were running up to me and saying, 'Hey, what happened?'"

For Whalen, the trip to Florida was a way to show his six kids where he had lived briefly as a teenager after moving from Kokomo to the Tampa area. He and Michaelle eventually met in Kokomo, but also ended up moving to Florida for a few years before moving to Tipton 10 years ago.

Whalen said it was the first family vacation they've had in a decade, and he was sure they all would make a lot of fun memories on the trip. What they got instead was a shocking surprise.

"It's been an electrifying week," Whalen said with a laugh.

Carson Gerber can be reached at 765-854-6739, carson.gerber@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter @carsongerber1.