Chunk of highway goes flying through truck’s windshield after lightning strikes road

A lightning strike sent a chunk of highway through the windshield of a truck in Florida on Monday and authorities say the truck’s occupants are lucky that their injuries weren’t more severe.

When fire rescue crews in Walton County, 40 miles north of Destin, responded to the scene of a traffic accident near mile marker 81 eastbound on Interstate 10 they found a Ford truck with both its windshield and rear window shattered.

Radar picked up on a lightning strike in the area, according to CNN meteorologist Haley Brink.

Two occupants of the vehicle where hurt and were transported to a local hospital. Fortunately, their injuries weren’t major or life-threatening, Lindsey Darby, public information officer for Walton County Fire Rescue, told CNN.

“The energy from a lightning strike has to go somewhere,” Brink said. “And when lightning strikes an object, such as pavement, it can cause that object to “explode” due to the lightning’s pressure blast wave which is caused by the sudden superheating of the air surrounding the lightning strike.”

Darby said she spoke with their Battalion Chief, Christopher Brown, about the incident afterward and he was surprised by what happened.

“He said, ‘I’ve been in the fire service for 19 years, and I have never seen anything like this,'” Darby said.

Darby has been in contact with the driver of the truck but said he doesn’t remember much about the accident “because it all happened so quickly.”