I thought, 'It's my time to die'

Kent Lilyerd wrestled with his new gazebo Friday afternoon as strong winds threatened to toss it into a nearby river. Soon, man and structure were cartwheeling through the air.

Suddenly, a blow to the back of Lilyerd's head planted him face-down in his lawn.

He lay unconscious for about an hour before awakening to the buzz of mosquitoes in his ears and cold rain slapping his body.

His teeth hurt. He couldn't move. It wasn't until he smelled his own burned flesh and hair that it hit him: He had been struck by lightning.

"I thought, 'I can't believe I got hit by lightning!' " the 47-year-old man said from his Mora, Minn., home Sunday afternoon. " 'It's my time to die. At least I've lived a good life.' "

Determined not to leave behind his family and work, the 6-foot-2, 345-pound Lilyerd shimmied on his stomach from the place where he'd fallen 50 feet to a side door in the bed-and-breakfast he runs with his wife. Using the toes of his steel-tipped boots, he pushed himself along, gradually regaining the use of his elbows as he progressed.

After 30 minutes of this, he banged on the door for another half-hour. His wife, Jana Lilyerd, was fast asleep in preparation for her night shift as an intensive-care and trauma nurse at Kanabec Hospital.

"I thought, 'I'm just not gonna make it,' " Kent Lilyerd said.

Through the haze of sleep, Jana Lilyerd heard hammering noises coming from outside. Then the pounding grew irregular in rhythm. And she heard moaning.

She ran to the door and found her unresponsive husband lying just beyond the threshold, pupils dilated, head bloody and mouth full of fluid. He had managed to open the door before collapsing.

"My initial thought was, 'You are not going to die on my watch,' " she said Sunday afternoon. "He did his part; he got to me."

Jana Lilyerd called 911. Then, decades of training kicked into gear. She turned her husband onto his side to drain the fluid from his mouth so he could breath.

When she had first seen him lying there, she thought: motorcycle accident with possible spinal injury.

"I never thought of lightning," she said.

He gurgled, making a noise similar to a "death rattle," the grim sound people often make just before death, as their lungs fail, she said.

But Jana Lilyerd had faith in her husband, a man who once struggled for two hours to climb out of a hole in a frozen lake, a man who six times survived electrical shock while welding, a man who was once accidentally shot in the forehead and chest by friends while duck hunting.

He was rushed to Kanabec Hospital, then airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. While at Kanabec, he managed to mumble one word: Lightning.

Doctors told him that the lightning apparently struck the back of his head and traveled through his clothing, shredding much of it in the process, and re-entered via one of his steel-toed boots.

Lilyerd was carrying a nickel and a round of ammunition in his pocket when he was hit. The former was charred black; the latter exploded without harming him.

At Hennepin County Medical Center, X-rays and a CT scan showed that he would be fine, but he remained unconscious because of medication. On Saturday, the medication was reduced and he regained consciousness.

By noon Sunday, he was being discharged, much improved but still suffering from occasional headaches, soreness, bruises and a little bit of trouble processing numbers -- the last one mostly due to medication.

He said it could take six to nine months to determine if he will face some of the common long-term side effects of lightning strikes, including a greater probability of cataracts.

Lilyerd knows it could have been worse. According to the National Weather Service, lightning kills an average of 62 people every year in the United States.

On Sunday night, he celebrated his survival with his wife, younger brother and nieces and nephews. A bigger fete is planned when he's back to his old self -- the wheely-popping motorcyclist.

For now, he's grateful to have more time with the couple's four children and two grandchildren.

And the gazebo, which he had planned to screw down that morning? It's a loss, but no one's mourning it. "If I'd known this was gonna happen," Kent Lilyerd said, "buddy, I would've just let it go."

Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391