ONLY ON ABC-7: Woman who resuscitated lightning strike victim speaks

ABC-7 spoke exclusively with a mother who helped resuscitate a teenage boy shocked during a lightning strike in Las Cruces.

Anna Krause was watching her son during the Picacho Middle School football team practice Tuesday afternoon from the bleachers when the sky grew dark and it began to sprinkle — then came down with a fury.

Krause said she and her daughter were scrambling off the bleachers when she heard a loud crack.

“It was really loud. It was like you were in an aluminum can,” Krause said. “It was really loud. I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

Then she saw Hunter Keffer, 13, lying on the ground, unconscious. Krause said she and another parent started performing CPR.

“When I went to give him the breath, his breath smelled like burning flesh. When I opened up his mouth, I could literally see the smoke coming out of his mouth,” said Krause, her voice cracking.

Krause said she began breathing into his mouth while another parent gave Keffer chest compressions.

“I was having a really hard time tilting his head because the back of his head — you could feel the back of his head, and it was all burnt,” she said, then paused, her face contorting as she tried holding back tears. “We turned him over and we noticed all the back of his uniform, his practice clothes, was all burnt.”

Krause said after five cycles of CPR, Keffer began turning blue — and then began breathing on his own.

“His eyes were still open,” Krause said, her voice strained with tears. “I knew he could hear me. His eyes were moving. I kept yelling, ‘Come on, Hunter, I know you can do it, come on! Show me you can do it!'”

The adrenaline carried this mother through a harrowing ordeal.

“I heard the ambulance and I was like, “Thank God, someone is here who can take over.'”

“That’s the hardest and worst experience I’ve ever gone through,” Krause said.

Keffer remains in the El Paso Children’s Hospital ICU, but his condition has been upgraded to stable.

Two other boys affected by the lightning strike are also in stable condition at EPCH.