Ipswich woman Johana Perez reveals how being struck by lightning changed her life forever

Two metal earrings were enough to conduct a brutal lightning strike that tore through the body of a childcare worker as she stood on a softball pitch. Amazingly, she survived; this is what life is like after a lightning strike.

An Ipswich woman who was struck by lightning when she was a teenager has revealed her extraordinary story of survival against unknown odds.

Johana Perez, 34, was in her final year of high school in Columbia and playing softball with her friends when the unthinkable happened.

As she stood at second base, she watched the ball travel closer and closer to her as if in slow motion. Then, she blacked out.

“When I woke up, I saw my friends screaming and running and there was so much panic,” she said.

“So I asked what was going on because I didn’t feel any pain.

“They said, ‘you were hit by lightning’. But I didn’t believe them.”

Johana Perez, 34, and her mum. Picture: Supplied

She said it was not until a car arrived to take her to hospital and she went to sit inside it that she began to realise what had just happened.

Her clothes were “totally burnt” and she had no feeling or movement from the waist down.

“My friend said ‘don’t worry, you don’t have enough space to move; that’s why you can’t move (your legs)’,” she said.

“I said ‘that’s not true’ and I started screaming.”

Ms Perez said she decided then and there that if she could not walk, she did not want to live.

Upon her arrival at the hospital, doctors and staff raced to her aid and attempted to remove the clothes and jewellery that had burnt and melted to her body.

Ipswich woman Johana Perez still has visible scars after the lightning struck and melted her earrings and necklace, damaging her eardrum and neck. Picture: Supplied

Though she does not remember it herself, she was told she repeatedly stuck her fingers in her eyes to numb the immense pain she was feeling in the moment.

She suffered burns all over her body and could not see nor hear, as the lightning had flowed through the metal in her earrings.

For a month, Ms Perez stayed at home and recovered with the help of her mother, but she did not want to miss too much school for risk of being unable to graduate.

Her mother brought her to school, fed her during break times, and collected her every day and, thanks to her own strength and that of her mother’s, she was able to graduate.

She said she felt as though she owed her life to her mum who sacrificed everything she had, both financially and otherwise, so that she could receive the best medical care available.

“She gave everything for me,” she said.

Johana Perez, her mum, and Johana’s partner Michael Malardier in Columbia. Picture: Supplied

Her mother was raising three children alone at the time of the freak accident and had been since her partner was caught in deadly crossfire when Ms Perez was just five years old.

In 2011, Ms Perez relocated with her partner — whom she plans to marry in February next year — to Queensland, Australia to try and make a life for herself and pay off her mum’s debts.

Johana Perez (right) said she felt as though she owed her life to her mum (left) and her sacrifice. Picture: Supplied

She now lives at Bellbird Park in Ipswich and works full-time in childcare. She regularly sends money back to her mum but said it is not enough to cover all of her medical expenses and other needs.

“One of my biggest dreams would be to bring down the debts of my mum so I can actually bring her to my wedding,” she said.

Nearly two decades after the lightning strike that changed the course of Ms Perez’ family’s life forever, the only visible proof of it ever having happened are the scars and burns on her body.

She does now have to wear glasses and she is sure her hearing is not perfect but, considering doctors were not sure whether she would live or die immediately after being struck, she believes she is “very lucky”.

Ms Perez is now trying to raise money for her mother so that she can bring her “back to life as she once did to me”.

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