By Larry King
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — No question, Sheila Gallagher said, this was a miracle.
Less than 24 hours after being knocked unconscious by a lightning strike, her daughter Bridget, 21, came home yesterday from Temple University Hospital.
“We owe this to God’s grace,” said the Bucks County woman, who said she had prayed throughout the ambulance ride to Philadelphia.
Also doing well was Eric “Jack” Lamorte, the 3-year-old boy who had been in the arms of Bridget Gallagher, his babysitter, as she ran for shelter at a Lower Makefield swim club Wednesday afternoon. The two had just passed a towering pine when lightning struck it, burning and felling them at the same time.
“Jack is fine. He’s watching cartoons,” said his father, Eric Lamorte. The child was released yesterday by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The only mark on Gallagher, said her mother, was a ringlike burn around her neck where a sterling silver necklace had been.
Jack’s only injury was a small burn on his arm, his father said, apparently from where it touched the silver necklace as the boy clung to his babysitter’s neck.
Bridget Gallagher, a senior speech therapy major at Pennsylvania State University, babysits Jack and two or three of his siblings twice a week, her mother said. They often go to nearby Brookside Swim and Tennis Club, where Jack’s eldest brother works as a lifeguard.
Brookside employees had hustled swimmers from the pool as the fast-gathering storm hit lower Bucks County around 3 p.m. Wednesday.
“This thing came in suddenly,” said Lower Makefield Police Capt. Tom Roche. “It was one of those pop-up thunderstorms.”
Bridget Gallagher had carried Jack to a covered, open-sided pavilion, her mother said yesterday. When the initial lightning blasts subsided, she ran with him toward the cinder-block clubhouse.
“As they were passing this tree, they got another hit that transferred to her,” Sheila Gallagher said. “She got thrown and blacked out, and she has no memory from that time until she started waking up at St. Mary Hospital.”
Jack fell to the ground, crying and scared, his father said.
A family friend, whose son also worked at the swim club, called Sheila Gallagher immediately at home. His tone, she said, was “like a father talking to a child: ‘Sheila, get to Brookside Pool now. Something bad has happened to Bridget.’ ”
She got there in seven minutes, beating the ambulances to the scene. She found her daughter lying on the floor of the entrance building, police officers tending to her.
“She looked in extraordinarily critical condition,” Gallagher said. “Her eyes were open, but she was absolutely unconscious.”
The electric surge had affected Bridget’s brain, her mother said, but had not stopped her heart.
“If I understand this correctly, she went into convulsions, and the brain started to repolarize,” Sheila Gallagher said. “She was in what they called a neurologically irritated state when they put her into the ambulance, and was very combative. She doesn’t remember any of this.”
Bridget Gallagher and Jack were taken to St. Mary in Middletown Township, where both were stabilized. Bridget’s head cleared enough for her to ask and answer questions, her mother said.
“The only thing she cared about was the baby: ‘Where’s Jack? How’s Jack?’
“She would doze in and out of sleep, then wake up and say, ‘Where’s Jack?’ She couldn’t remember that we had already told her that he was stabilized and fine.”
Bridget Gallagher was taken to Temple’s burn center for overnight observation and monitoring. Jack was transported to Children’s Hospital.
Riding in the front of Bridget’s ambulance, Sheila Gallagher prayed the rosary and phoned her friends and her parish, St. Ignatius of Antioch. A prayer network was launched. “Convents were called, nuns and priests and cloisters,” she said.
At Temple, a call came in for the Gallaghers. It was Eric Lamorte, Jack’s father.
“He wanted to see how Bridget was doing. We’re worried about Jack and he’s worried about Bridget,” Sheila Gallagher said.
“But, praise God, Jack’s coming home today and everybody’s still in good, strong friendships. We’re only worried about each other.”
Gallagher said her daughter was still too drained to talk publicly about the ordeal.
“The doctor said to expect her to be exhausted for a while,” Gallagher said. “We have to let her regroup.”