With a torrential downpour bearing down on her, Bridget Gallagher, with a crying 3-year-old in her arms, waited for the first break in the storm and ran.

That was the last thing she remembers.

Gallagher (senior-speech pathology) and Jack LaMorte, 3, were both struck by lightning last Wednesday when they passed a nearby tree that was simultaneously struck by lightning, according to a Lower Makefield Township police report.

Gallagher was babysitting for family friends, the LaMortes, at the Brookside Swim Club in Yardley, when the incident occurred. LaMorte's older brothers had already gone to the pool's clubhouse for better cover, leaving Gallagher behind with the youngest brother.

"I even thought about [getting struck by lightning] before I ran, but you never think it's actually going to happen," she said. "At the time, I was more concerned about Jack and getting soaked."

Lightning strikes are rare even when they are not deadly, with only one reported fatality in Pennsylvania this year, according to the Penn State Weather Communications Group.

Though Gallagher does not recall the events that took place next, family and friends have helped her to recount what happened.

"I started convulsing and threw up on my sister Maureen," she said. "Apparently my eyes were open but they were darting everywhere. When the ambulance arrived, they had to hold me down because I was slipping into seizures."

These symptoms are caused by the electrical reaction to the nervous system, said Lewis Logan, a Penn State physician at the University Health Services and an outdoor survival instructor.

Getting struck by lightning is not like sticking your finger in a socket, he said. A lightning strike exposes people to a higher degree of voltage in a shorter duration of time, Logan said.

The electrical injury shocks the nervous system, depolarizing the heart and the brain, Logan said. The heart usually stops and the victim looses consciousness. One-third of those struck by lightning die, and in these cases the cause of death is typically caused by respiratory failure, he said.

Logan said CPR has the highest success rate among lightning strike victims, adding potential rescuers can not get shocked when providing care to the victim.

Gallagher's sister has told her that in the ambulance Gallagher appeared to wake up briefly and started hitting the paramedics. Her kidney also stopped working in the ambulance.

After the initial shock is given it to the body, the entire nervous system faces "electrical challenges," Logan said. Lightning strike victims have no control over their actions as the brain works to reboot itself, he said. Victims may even appear to be awake but are still unconscious, he added.

For a brief period of time when the body undergoes a high quantity of stress, the kidneys can shut down because of a protein overload, Logan said.

"This can happen with any severe trauma like an accident or even in people during marathons," he said.

Gallagher first woke up in the St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown to see LaMorte's parents standing over her.

"I just kept asking them 'Where's Jack? How's Jack?' then I went back into unconsciousness," she said.

When she awoke the second time, she had been transferred to the Temple University Hospital and started vomiting again because of a reaction to the morphine.

"Today I feel like I was in a bad car accident," Gallagher said Sunday. "My neck is really sore, but I really have nothing to complain about."

The only scar she has is a burn from a sterling silver Tiffany & Co.'s necklace which she wore that day.

Lightning strikes leave a distinct type of burn behind, created by the pattern of evaporation during the electrical shock, Logan said.

Doctors told Gallagher some of the electricity left her body through the necklace and through LaMorte, who Gallagher was holding at the time.

She said it was a real miracle ¾ she typically never wears jewelry when working.

Logan said the human body has a higher percentage of water, which is why the lightning originally jumped from the tree into Gallagher. The necklace also conducted more electricity than Gallagher. But, neither necklace nor the child ¾ who carries more fat and therefore less electricity than an adult ¾ absorbed the majority of the shock, he said.

"I'm going to be more cautious in storms now, for fear of this happening again to me or any people I'm with," Gallagher said. "I'm just grateful that it was me and not anyone else."