Roger Drolet lost about seven hours of his life on Oct. 30 when he was struck by lightning through a headset he was wearing while in his Whitefield home.
Drolet, who works as an account manager for a major transcription company, was working in the basement of his home around 2 p.m. when lightning struck a tree outside the home. The electricity was conducted through his computer and into the headset.
Drolet said his wife saw approximately foot-long sparks shooting out of the headset. “My wife looked over and she actually saw the sparks coming out the headset directly into my head,” he said. “Pretty much the rest of the day I don’t remember.”
Drolet blacked out, was transported to MaineGeneral Medical Center, and began to regain his senses around 9 p.m. After numerous tests to ensure his organs were functioning properly, Drolet was released.
For the next three to five days, Drolet said he had “a lot of trouble with my speech patterns…almost like dyslexia-type symptoms, messing up some words, having trouble typing.”
“It does not make it easy when you’re transcribing, that’s for sure. It’s definitely slowed me down,” Drolet said.
Drolet works from home, and said his team members have been “exceptionally supportive.” He had been promoted only three days before the incident and is in charge of quality assurance for his team’s contract.
Drolet said he has a little muscle loss, and his doctor had likened his symptoms to that of a stroke victim.
“I’m waiting for the results of the [CT] scan to come back and have a followup with my doctor in a couple of weeks to make sure some of the short-term symptoms have gone away,” Drolet said.
“The first responder who showed up…is also a master electrician right here in Whitefield,” Drolet said. “He did some kind of a check of jacks throughout the house” to see what the electricity went through and was able to verify that it was a lightning strike.
“I feel like I was very much blessed,” Drolet said. “I tend to be a bit of a spiritual man and I believe I had a guarding angel looking out for me.”
“It was, to put a long story short, a very intense day,” Drolet said.