GOSHEN -- 24-year-old Shawn Vice was inside his home Tuesday night when a lightning bolt went shooting through his window, hitting him in the arm and knocking him to the ground.
Vice says his body is sore from the strike, but mostly he is stunned he is still alive.
He calls his survival a miracle.
"The lightning bolt goes 'Shwooop!,'" said Vice.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
"I see a big, blue-white light flash," Vice said. "Next thing I know I’m on the floor."
"He was just white as a ghost, I said 'Shawn, did you get shocked?'” said Vice’s mother.
His called 911. Paramedics rushed him to hospital.
"She screamed, she's freaking out," Vice said, pointing to his mother and girlfriend.
But he kept his cool. He remained conscious, but couldn't move his body.
Vice thinks about 120-240 volts entered through some white dots on his shoulder and left his body through the white dot on his wrist. He says those dots were not on his arm before the accident.
Doctors diagnosed him with electrical shock.
So why was Vice's body a target?
“I knew it was going to happen sooner or later because I have titanium steel in my leg," Vice said.
A knee injury required screws and a metal plate in his left leg. But another electrical culprit may have also attracted the bolt of lightning.
“I press the Xbox button...and then poof!"
That poof was lightning entering his body, taking out 3 DVRs, the phone, internet and the Xbox.
But it was a close call.nVice said if he was a few feet closer to the Xbox when the lightning shot through the window, he could be dead.
He's says all he can do is count his blessings.
"I’ve done it all: I’ve hit a home run, bowled a 300, scored a touchdown, been struck by lightning," Vice said.
The National Weather Service said there's a 1 in 10,000 chance you'd be struck by lightning in your lifetime.
A one in a million chance you'd be struck in a given year.
Vice was in the hospital for a few hours last night and had a check-up this evening; he is healthy right now, but says he is sore and tired.
He describes the feeling of being struck like a punch from Mike Tyson, saying it just knocked him out.
