Teens Survive Lightning Strike, Lived to Tell

March 16, 2011— -- Dane Zdunich and Alex Lambson are walking miracles. The 17-year-olds survived nature's most sudden and deadly fury -- a lightning strike that stopped both their hearts -- and lived to tell the story.

"Waking up in the hospital a couple days after that ... I had to be told so many times [what happened]," said Zdunich today on "Good Morning America."

"I kinda thought I was in hell," Lambson recalled. "My dad was standing over me...Everything was yellow because my eyes were burned ... I was on a bed that was too small for me."

The two boys were struck on the afternoon of Oct. 5 while they were waiting outside Snow Canyon High School near St. George, Utah, for their ride home.

The best friends were standing near a window and behind a tree when the lightning hit, striking Zdunich from his head to his feet, then traveling through to Lambson. They had no warning.

Ron Hansen, a social science teacher, said he heard a clap of thunder and then screaming. When he ran out of his classroom, he found the two students on the ground.

"To come out and see two boys lying on their backs, smoldering. There's no way to prepare for that," he said. "I thought I was looking at two dead boys."

Hansen and other school officials took turns performing CPR on the boys. Paramedics continued for 20 minutes on Zdunich and 38 minutes on Lambson. Normally efforts are halted after 15 minutes.

An average of 58 people die every year after being struck by lightning.

The teens were struck by what is known a clear sky lightning. The sky was fairly clear before they were struck, and then a black cloud formed just before the strike. Lightning can travel 25 miles ahead of the thunderhead, the storm itself.