Ms Mariana van den Bergh said their home in Buller Lane was struck shortly after 19:00 last night.
“I had gone to fetch some water from the fridge and still thought not to touch the kitchen sink because of the heavy weather.”

As she touched the fridge handle, which is silver, lightning struck their house, as well as their neighbour’s home, causing a power surge to electrocute her through the fridge, “I saw a bright orange flame at my feet and experienced significant pain on the right-hand side of my body. My arm went lame, and my foot burned from the strike.”

Mariana believes that their neighbour’s house might have absorbed most of the surge.

“It is by the grace of God that I am still standing here!”

• Thea Viljoen, also a resident of Buller Lane and Mariana’s neighbour, confirmed that their home was struck by lightning, causing significant damage to their electrical devices.

“We had unplugged everything out of habit, but the lightning struck our DStv dish outside and coursed its way into our home.”
The impact of the strike was so violent that plastic pieces from the dish’s eye scattered onto their neighbour’s property.

“Our dish, decoder, inverter, television and the wifi router were damaged by the strike.”

Thea says their devices are fortunately insured, but explained that the inverter and television alone amount to roughly R190 000 in damages.

• Mr Fanie Groenewald confirmed that their home in Essenhout Street was also struck.

“The lightning had already taken out the power, but a second strike damaged our DB board. Fortunately, we incurred no other damages apart from that.”