Man Hit by Lightning Alters Outlook

The jagged red scar running down Guy Arnone’s stomach is as jagged as a lightning bolt. With good reason. He’s the guy who was jolted by one last week.

Rapidly recovering from the blow that knocked him unconscious in his office parking lot in Calabasas, Arnone said he remembers nothing of the freak incident that shredded his clothes and singed his body.

“I must have asked the nurses and doctors 20 times, ‘What happened? What am I doing here?’ ” said Arnone, 30, during a news conference he called to thank those who helped him through the ordeal.

“I just couldn’t believe what had happened to me.”

He talked to reporters for nearly an hour at his office in Newhall, frequently sharing lightning jokes (he has been called Sparky and Flash) and chuckling through cracked teeth--casualties of his face-first fall onto the asphalt. Even so, the Canyon Country real estate broker was visibly shaken, pale and wobbly.

“I’m still kind of shaky,” he said.

He continues to endure chest and back pain and can barely eat solid foods due to internal bruising, he said. Burns on his stomach, neck and ankle have scabs on them.

Arnone was struck during a fierce rain and electrical storm about 4 p.m. March 14 as he walked to his car in the parking lot of a branch real estate office in Calabasas. “It sounded like a gunshot,” said Greg Nierenberg, manager for Funders Mortgage Corp. and Arnone’s boss, at the news conference. “The noise was incredible.”

Running out into the downpour to help their fallen colleague, who they said looked dead, his face bloodied and purple-hued, co-workers moved him to shelter and helped him breathe until rescue crews arrived.

When he finally awoke a few hours later at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Arnone was disoriented, afraid and racked with pain. He experienced constant muscle spasms and said he had the odd sensation that his brain was not quite connected to his body.

“My whole system seemed to be off,” he said.

Kristen Arnone, his wife, said she was at their home when she was called to the hospital. “I seriously didn’t know what to expect when I got there,” she said. “I thought he’d either be sitting there laughing . . . or he would be gone.”

Like most people struck by lightning--only 20% of those hit are killed--Arnone survived to tell the tale and was released from the hospital after just three days.

He was taken aback when he saw, for the first time, the remnants of the clothes he had been wearing when he was hit. The zipper of his dark green pants had melted and the left leg was blown apart at the seam. The shirt was shredded, with brown burn marks around the collar. The clothes looked like a ragged pirate costume.

“They were quite interesting,” he said with some understatement. “I was a little scared when I saw them.”

This week, he began working from home for a few hours each day, and plans to return back to work full time after about another week of rest.

Responding to a question, Arnone said he had never paid much attention to storms before. But looking at the storm clouds darkening the sky as they gathered overhead, Arnone said, only half-joking, “I’m nervous now.”