A Toronto man is lucky to be alive after a lightning strike narrowly missed him at a golf course west of Stittsville yesterday.
It was one of many incidents related to a band of severe thunderstorms which swept through the region.
Just before 6 p.m. Rick Begg, 43, was knocked off his feet after a bolt of lightning struck nearby.
He was one about 40 Mitel employees who golf every Tuesday at Glen Mar Golf and Country Club, on the course when lightning struck near the third hole.
"There was a lot of freaking, cracking and rain and then there was a really, really loud smack," said Mitel employee Butch Montavon.
Donna Scott, the golf course's general manager, said there is an "off the course" policy when there is a thunderstorm and a marshal on a cart told all players to get off the course.
Scott's niece, Kimberley Smith, who is also a nurse at the Ottawa Heart Institute, tended to Begg and said he was conscious when she arrived at the scene.
Paramedics responded and he was taken to the Queensway Carleton Hospital complaining of numbness in his leg and foot. He was not seriously injured and he never lost consciousness.
"It was probably a heavy static charge that went through him," said Ottawa paramedic supervisor J.P. Trottier.
The Ottawa fire department had no major weather-related incidents, but responded to numerous calls of people stuck in elevators and alarms going off in buildings.
By 8 p.m. last night, OPP reported no major accidents or localized flooding as a result of the heavy rain.
Ottawa police Sgt. Denis Cleroux said there were about 10 accidents across the city with no major injuries.
A Hydro Ottawa spokesman said there were four minor power interruptions as a result of the storm. The largest one was in the River Rd. and Leitrim area where 1,000 customers were affected. Power was restored quickly.
All available crews were working to restore power to the thousands of Hydro One customers affected by interruptions, said spokeswoman Kim McLennan.
By 8:30 p.m. last night, about 4,000 Hydro One customers were still without power and were expected to be restored by midnight, McLennan said. During the peak of the storm, she said about 12,000 customers were affected.
Environment Canada yesterday afternoon issued a severe thunderstorm warning for much of Southern and Eastern Ontario and warnings of damaging winds, hail and even tornados for some areas.
The culprit was an unstable airmass moving in ahead of a cold front. By late last night, the system had moved off to the southeast into Quebec and the northern U.S.
Source: The Ottawa Sun