Australian woman temporarily paralysed, wakes up with new eye colour after being struck by lightning

Carly Electric eventually made a full recovery, she was taken aback when she noticed a change in her eye colour.

A Queensland woman who was left paralysed after being struck by lightning has revealed that the incident also changed the colour of her eyes.

Carly Electric, 30, who coincidentally shares a surname with the force that nearly killed her, had always been fascinated by storms and lightning. Her admiration for nature’s raw power was so deep that she had three lightning-themed tattoos as a tribute to her favourite weather phenomenon.

However, in December 2023, she found herself on the receiving end of a lightning strike, an encounter far closer than she had ever wished for.

Electric had rushed out of her home to get a better view of an approaching storm when she was electrocuted. The next thing she knew, her body had completely shut down.

"I was covered in sweat, light-headed, and almost euphoric. I couldn't move, not even an inch," she recalled, speaking to the New York Post.

She described feeling as though she had been "drugged" and completely lost sensation in her limbs.

By the time emergency responders arrived, her feet and hands had turned blue, and she could only move her head and neck. Though she remained conscious, she struggled to breathe, with the last thing she remembered being doctors swarming her at the hospital. She drifted in and out of consciousness for several hours.

Medical professionals diagnosed her with keraunoparalysis, a rare condition also known as lightning paralysis, which causes temporary paralysis of the limbs following a lightning strike.

Though Electric eventually made a full recovery, she was taken aback when she noticed a change in her eye colour.

"My previously green eyes are now dark brown," she said, adding that the transformation was not unheard of among lightning strike survivors.

She decided to research the phenomenon online, where she found similar cases of people experiencing eye colour changes after electrocution.

"The top of my head is very sensitive, where I was hit. It's hot to the touch, so I have to avoid it when brushing my hair," she added.

This is not the first time a lightning strike has caused unexpected physical changes in a survivor. In 2017, a teenager in Alabama, US, claimed that her vision had improved after being struck by lightning, stating that she no longer needed glasses or contact lenses.