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Woman struck by lightning shares recovery
An Orlando woman struck by lightning back in August is back at work this week and sharing her road to recovery. Rebecca Soto says she has no memory of the lightning strike; her husband, Lauro, had to fill in the details for her.
ORLANDO, Fla. - An Orlando woman struck by lightning back in August is back at work this week and sharing her road to recovery.
Rebecca Soto says she has no memory of the lightning strike; her husband, Lauro, had to fill in the details for her.
She was getting ready for a Beyoncé concert and noticed it was about to rain, so she went outside to take their dog Drake for a quick walk before the storm rolled in. Lauro Soto was inside and heard a huge bang. He came out to see what had happened and talked to his wife about the noise.
That’s when he saw her.
She was facedown on the ground with Drake beside her. Lauren’s heart had stopped. She had bruising and internal burns. But she lived.
The main damage was cognitive. She had a lot of trouble with short-term memory for a while, and she’d get confused. She’s still working on that.
"It takes me like 5 or 10 seconds to think of things that would be at the top of my head beforehand," said Soto. "But getting better every day."
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That was a huge scare for Lauro at first. Right now, he’s trying to balance work, recovery, his own mental health, new medical bills. It’s a lot to take on.
"We’re super appreciative of all the support we’ve had so far," Lauro said. "And we’ll need a lot more of it going forward as we try to figure out a sense of normalcy for us."
For Lauren, recovery has mostly just been sleep. Lots, and lots of sleep; sometimes 20 hours a day. But it’s working!
"I got cleared by the neurologist a couple weeks ago to go back to normal activities, so that was a big milestone, for sure," Lauren said. "I can ease back into stuff as I feel comfortable. I can take the dog out by myself without my husband worrying that I’ll forget where we live."
Now, Lauren is back at work, at least as much as she can. And she plans to start back up at Grad School next semester.
"There’s responsibilities still in my life too, that need to get done. So just trying to balance that, but also trying to put my physical body first, because as the doctors have told me, there’s only one of those."
As for Drake, he’s got a little bit of storm anxiety, but otherwise, he’s doing just fine.