Clutching his father’s hand as he walked up the driveway of his home, a 6-year-old boy who was only days from finishing kindergarten, is fighting for his life after his dad was struck and killed by lightning, a fierce current of electricity that then traveled to the little boy.
At the time of the fatal strike, Matthew Boggs, 34, was looking down at his adorable, blond-haired son Grayson, saying, “I love you.”
On May 15, about 5:10 p.m., 11-year-old Elijah was walking home from a bus stop, a couple of feet away from his dad Matthew Boggs and baby brother, Grayson, 6, when lightning came out of nowhere and struck his dad and brother.
“I was really scared. I rolled Grayson over and he was kind of smiling a little bit. I thought they were just joking,” Elijah told local news station KWTX. “But when I rolled my dad over the middle of his head was bleeding and his face was already purple.”
Elijah was likely saved because of a separation in the driveway, which caused him to veer to the left, away from his brother and dad, who continued to the right.
Matthew’s cousin, Stephanie Burris, said family members who were home at the time explained that Matthew reached down and grabbed Grayson’s hand right after the two separated from Elijah.
“He just got done telling Grayson—he said, ‘I love you buddy.’ That’s when the lightning came down,” said Matthew’s mother, Angela Boggs, who was outside mowing the lawn of her home next door to her only son, when she watched him being struck and killed.
When emergency responders arrived at the scene, in Valley Mills, TX, about 30 minutes from Waco, both Matthew and Grayson were unconscious, Matthew without any signs of life.
Grayson, who at the time was breathing but unresponsive, was rushed to the McClane Children’s Hospital Baylor Scott and White.
His mother, Angela, shaken over the freak accident that killed her son, said, “I always took care of him because he was the one that God gave to me. Now my responsibility is to take care of my grandbabies.”
Dr. Max Kopitnik, a trauma surgeon at Baylor Scott & White, explained to KWTX that the bolt struck Matthew in what’s called “a direct hit, from cloud to person,” which he says, “will almost universally be fatal.” The current of electricity, that can cause severe electrical burns on the inside and outside, then traveled to little Grayson.
The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 1.2 million. The National Weather Service reports that across the U.S.A, in a 30-year period (1989-2018), there was an average of 43 lightning-related fatalities per year. In addition, only about 10% of people who are struck by lightning are killed, the remaining 90% are left with various degrees of disability.
Grayson, who family says is still mostly unresponsive, has been having frequent seizures and doctors explained that an MRI revealed “damage to his frontal lobe and his optic nerve.” The little boy also suffered a major anoxic brain injury, caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, that could impact his ability to walk, talk, eat, and/or see
