Local man tells story of surviving lightning strike
Aurora native Lonnie Ott, has authored a new book called, “When Lightning Strikes: Hearing God’s Call.” The short novel details Ott’s experiences during his 45 years of being a preacher and traveling the U.S., including the story of how he was struck by lightning.
Ott’s book is about hearing God’s call and what that looked like in his life.
“It takes you into the Word to search out the various ways in which God speaks to believers and how He reveals His will, His plans, to Christians. God calls every believer in various ways and for various purposes,” said the book’s description on Amazon.
Ott was born outside of Giltner and moved to the Aurora area when he was 3. He grew up here and graduated from Aurora High School. He played sports and also played in the band. That was the same year the band played and marched at the Orange Bowl.
After high school, he attended UNK (formerly Kearney State College), and after graduation went on to study at Denver Seminary in Colorado.
During his second to last year at seminary, Ott was working as a youth pastor. He and three of his students took a canoeing trip to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. During their last night on the trip, Ott was struck by lightning.
“Lightning came right through the door of the tent, struck me unconscious, and scattered the 15-year-old and the two 17-year-olds into the corners of the tent,” Ott said.
Ott came to after about 15 minutes, but didn’t regain feeling in his legs until 30 minutes after waking up.
“Then I was able to start moving around and get up and we joined hands and prayed, and the 15-year-old asked the Lord to calm the storm and immediately the lightning quit, rain let up to a sprinkle–the storm basically quit,” Ott said.
After the storm settled, the three tried to sleep, but couldn’t seem to shake the night’s events from their minds. Ott did what he knew–he prayed.
“I asked the Lord to just send somebody, anybody just to reassure us.”
Navigating the Boundary Waters at night was a challenge, so the request seemed too far-fetched to be answered until Ott heard the sound of a canoe crashing onto the landing and saw three people.
“They were going by the front of the landing and they got off because of the lightning,” Ott said. They started apologizing, and I said no apologies needed. I told them what was going on. There were two men and a boy. The one man reached back and pulled out a black bag and said he’s Doctor Galley, a doctor from a local hospital.”
With the prayer for reassurance answered, Ott was helped by the doctor and told he would be okay to wait until morning to go to the hospital.
When reaching the hospital, Ott was told that he had second and third-degree burns on his legs from the lightning strike.
Ott shares stories like this and many more in his book. Stories of his time traveling the midwest as a preacher in small, rural towns, stories of how he met his wife, stories of his son, stories of his parishioners and many more are what make up the book, “When Lightning Strikes: Hearing God’s Call.”
Ott’s book is available for purchase on the websites Amazon, Westbow Press and Christianbook. You can also visit Ott’s website at lonnieott.com to purchase the book.