A Florida husband and wife walking hand in hand on a popular trail were hit by a bolt of lightning that left the mother of three unresponsive and turning blue, until four bystanders rushed in and brought her back.
Aaron Walenga, 48, and his wife Clare, 43, had just dropped their children off at church on September 2 and headed out for a walk on the West Orange Trail in central Florida. There were no audible warning signs of a storm. Then lightning struck both of them where they stood.
Aaron hit the ground and could not get up. Clare lost consciousness, stopped breathing, and her skin turned blue. Four members of a weekly running club happened to be nearby, and their fast action almost certainly saved Clare Walenga's life.
Michael Weyand, one of the runners, reached Clare first. He told reporters what he saw when he got to her side.
"I've never seen anybody that color in my life before. I checked to see if she was breathing and she wasn't."
Weyand had no medical training. He had never performed CPR. But he dropped to his knees and started chest compressions anyway.
"I've never done CPR before in my life. But in that moment, I knew I had to start."
Two other members of the running group, Charlotte Sachetti Weyand and Amber McManus, called 911. Tiffany Roby was also at the scene. Before Weyand could begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Clare took what he described as a "massive breath" on her own. She was alive.
Aaron, meanwhile, lay on the trail unable to reach his wife. He later described the agony of those moments.
"I wanted to get to Clare, and I just couldn't get up. I couldn't really move, and I was in the worst pain of my life."
Paramedics transported both to the hospital. Clare suffered a concussion. Aaron had bruises across his face. The couple, married 17 years and living in Apopka, Florida, faced a long recovery, but they were breathing.
By September 4, relatives posted an update saying Clare had made "significant progress." A fundraiser set up for the family raised more than $65,000.
Lightning strikes remain rare but deadly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the odds of being struck in any given year at less than one in a million, and nearly 90 percent of victims survive. Clare Walenga almost did not fall into that majority. Without Weyand's willingness to act, the outcome could have been very different.
On Saturday, Aaron spoke publicly to thank the four strangers who stopped to help. He addressed them directly.
"There were so many miracles that we witnessed from Claire being brought back to life to, the four of you being there on that trail at that time."
Clare, recovering, kept her own reflection brief.
"The gift of life that we have is just so beautiful."
Tiffany Roby, who was at the scene alongside the others, summed up the weight of the moment simply: "I don't know how to describe the feeling."
The Walengas' ordeal is far from an isolated case. On September 1, just one day before the couple was struck, a Utah father named Steve Matheson was hit by lightning while helping stranded boaters off the Florida coast. He died of his injuries.
Earlier in the same month, Matthew Jenkins, a 20-year-old who had just moved to Florida to attend the Disney College Program, died after being struck by lightning.
On August 24, a Florida mother named Kenya Glasgow, 31, and her 2-year-old daughter Kennedi were struck by lightning in front of the child's father. Lightning does not discriminate by age, fitness, or location, and Florida, the so-called Lightning Capital of the United States, sees more strikes per year than any other state.
Other recent cases around the country underscore the danger. A 71-year-old woman on Nantucket dismissed her own lightning strike as a power surge before camp counselors intervened and saved her life. In Ohio, a single bolt hospitalized at least 16 inmates at a correctional facility.
Even a GOP congressional staffer on a Staten Island sidewalk was struck and walked away. Others have not been so fortunate, a man was killed by lightning in the ocean at Fort Myers Beach as the Fourth of July weekend began.
Family members said in their September 4 update that they remain cautiously optimistic.
"We have seen God answer so many prayers, and Clare and Aaron have come a long way in such a short amount of time. We remain hopeful and thankful as they continue on the road to recovery."
The four runners who stopped on the West Orange Trail that day did not have medical degrees or emergency certifications. They had instinct, nerve, and the willingness to act when a stranger's life depended on it. Michael Weyand put his hands on a woman's chest and pushed because nobody else was going to.
In a country that spends a lot of time arguing about who should do what for whom, the Walenga story is a reminder that the most consequential acts of service still come from ordinary people who simply refuse to stand by.
