In Yekaterinburg, a ball lightning killed a 19-year-old girl

And her sister was crippled

- We often relax with our family on the Visovsky Pond, - says 22-year-old Alyona, the sister of the deceased Natalia Titova. – We didn't swim for long that day – at about three o'clock in the afternoon we heard thunder and jumped ashore. The storm was strange - dry, almost without rain. The three of us were running across the sand, and then there was a crack. My vision went dark, my arms and legs suddenly felt terribly hot. I don't remember anything else.

Natalia and Alyona with the baby chose a high-voltage power line support as a place of shelter. It was she who attracted the ball lightning. The discharge passed through the power line that stretches over the pond, hit the water and those who were on the shore. The strongest discharge went to Natalia Titova. According to eyewitnesses, the swimsuit on the girl literally burst. She was still alive for a few minutes. Vacationers rushed to her aid. But when the Ambulance arrived, Natasha was no longer breathing.

An eight-year-old girl, who did not have time to jump ashore before the storm, lost consciousness right in the water: fortunately, she was at the very shore, and she was immediately pulled out.

Alyona burned her hands and feet. Her two-year-old son suffered less - without burns, he was taken to the hospital in a state of shock… All the victims are now in the hospital. The condition is moderate, there is no threat to life.

- This is the first time in my memory, - says Alexander Igishev, a doctor at the 40th Yekaterinburg hospital, a specialist in burns. – We haven't had any ball lightning victims yet. They usually die on the spot. Ball lightning causes both electrical injury and thermal burn at the same time. But our patients will pull through.

The Verkh-Isetsky district police are conducting proceedings on the fact of Titova's death: the pond where she was swimming was not equipped with a rescue station and a medical center.