James's Story

On Sept. 7, 2012 the unexpected happened, It had been a typical hot and sunny day all day. We were finally moving into our own house the next day so we had been moving our things from our storage sheds into a uhaul truck and had gone back to where we were living with family to load our stuff from there. Around 3:45pm, James, my dad and I took a few things on to the truck and itstarted to drizzle, there was not alot of clouds, still sunshine,and there was no thunder. I grabbed my dogs to take them out, James grabbed a bag with his video game controllers and handed them to my dad who was in the back of the truck, and then he said he was going to cover up his dirt bike. I turned to help my dad close the back of the truck so we could go inside and rest and then all of a sudden a loud boom and a flash of light. I had been hit indirectly, my son James was hit directly by lightning. I went deaf briefly and spun around to see James on the concrete driveway slab..I ran to him and started cpr, we were yelling for help and 911 was called.. Neighbors and our Pastor came and helped with cpr, EMS arrived and took us both to the hosptial

..I was released the next day from the hospital and my son was on life support after suffering the full strike, he was dead at the scene and through cpr his heart restarted, he had two more cardiac arrests in the ambulance. He had massive brain damage, a bleed on the brain, a skull fracture and massive brain swelling. On Sept. 11, 2012 James was declared brain dead and passed away.

I made a promise to him that I would start a lightning awareness program in his honor to bring awareness to weather patterns. This came out of the blue, James and I are not the only ones to ever be hit by lightning without an actual active thunder storm directly overhead. My hope is to bring the awareness of the dangers of storms and even that lightning can and does strike out of nowhere on clear and almost clear days. Lightning can travel several miles away from a storm and strike without notice. The facts are shocking and staggering. -Angela(James’s mother)

Here is the Facebook page his mother created in James’s honor. For the past 11 years Angela has shared incredible lightning facts and stories in the hopes to raise awareness in her son’s honor. Please visit and share her page.

James’s E Pinkstaff Lightning Awareness Group In Loving Memory of James Facebook Page