Woman is burnt as lightning hits phone

Monday 29th November 2010, 1:00PM GMT.

The Rev. Maurice Strike surveys damage to a Torteval churchyard tree split by lightning on Friday night. The church was also hit, a woman suffered burns and a house in St Martin’s set alight. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 1059650)

A WOMAN needed hospital treatment for facial burns after lightning struck her house and the handset she was holding burst into flames.

And firefighters spent two hours tackling a blaze in a home at St Martin’s that had also been struck.

The woman lives in Torteval where the parish church’s electrical system was damaged by lightning during the same storm on Friday night.

The bolt hit the church just after 8pm and a neighbour who opens and locks the church checked afterwards and discovered smoke coming out of the vestry.