Struck By Lightning
Eau Claire Weekly Telegram | June 24, 1904

During the storm yesterday afternoon, Miss Theresa Uetz, aged 19, who resides with her parents on the west side in Eau Claire city was struck by lightning. A dog in the same room was killed. The girl will recover.

Chad’s Take: Being hit by lightning – Bad luck or good luck?

I have always been fascinated by stories of people being hit by lightning. It is not that I take some sadistic pleasure from these stories, I am just realty curious as to the rarity of the event. How much bad luck has to fall on you before you get hit by lightning? Generally speaking the odds are in your favor that you will never be hit by lightning. Think back to how many times have you heard someone tell you that you have better odds being hit by lightning than winning the lottery. Was Miss Uetz any luckier or unluckier than someone winning twenty million dollars? I am sure that her dead dog would not have considered itself to be very lucky.

This article really directed me down a path of wondering if people who get hit by lightning also generally suffer from ill fate in the rest of their daily lives. Was this a freak one-time event that happened to a person who generally enjoyed good luck in life, or was the lightning strike just another mishap in a long line of tragedies? I would love to know more about the life and luck of Miss Uetz. Perhaps some of her descendants will read this article and let me know what became of her---But then again, I am probably not that lucky.

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