Photo: Darrell Hoskins/Facebook
Despite the rain coming down as he used his riding lawn mower to cut the last patch of grass at his mother’s house in Somerville, Darrell Hoskins was determined to get the job done. Hoskins continued to work in the rain as thunder sounded off in the distance, mowing as he listened to music through the earbuds connected to his smartphone,FOX 13reports.
“He had just a little bit of grass left, and it started sprinkling,” his cousin, Stephanie Skelton, toldWMC.
Then, in a blink of an eye, the widowed father of two was dead.
“It just bounced off and got him in the back of the head,” Hoskins’ brother, Ken Hoskins, told WMC. “I mean he didn’t even know it was coming.”
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According to the news outlet, Hoskins’s niece and 8-year-old daughter allegedly were the first to find his body after the strike. The two children tried to use his smartphone to call emergency services, but with the device broken — likely from the lightning — the two had to run three houses down to a neighbor’s home to call 911.
“It’s just a freak accident, one of those things you read about,” Barbara Steward, Hoskins’ aunt, toldWREG. “They said it was a small cloud that just popped up overhead. Just a couple pops of lightning and that was it.”
She added: “It was unreal. I know you use that word all the time, but it was like it wasn’t real. Still isn’t.”
Victims who survive lightning strikes can experience cardiac arrest, severe burns, hearing loss and neurological afflictions that may lead to personality changes,mood swings and memory loss.
The family recently set up aGoFundMepage to help raise funds to pay for Hoskins funeral expenses, and to help his daughter. The donation page has raised more than $2,600 in four days.
In anobituary page, it was revealed that Hoskins was a longtime wrestling fan and enjoyed target shooting and finding things at flea markets. His wife of six years, Amy Jo Reeves Hoskins, died in 2011.
“Darrell had the sweetest, gentlest spirit,” his aunt, Steward, toldWREG. “Everyone loved him and he loved everybody.”
source: people.com
