Bodycam shows response to save husband, wife severely injured in lightning strike on Central Florida trail<\/a><\/p>\n‘Holding hands’<\/p>\n
According to the incident report, Aaron told police he remembered holding hands with his wife when they got hit by lightning.<\/p>\n
Aaron and Clare ended up at Orlando Regional Medical Center.<\/p>\n
They both work at Foundation Academy in Winter Garden, where their three children go to school.<\/p>\n
“I get to, you know, be your wife and the mom to my three precious children and it’s because of your actions that you took,” Clare said Friday at Foundation Academy.<\/p>\n
The Walengas said they usually go for walks Wednesday nights near downtown Winter Garden after dropping their children off at a church youth group.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, Aaron said he checked a weather app and noticed a storm brewing on the other side of town.<\/p>\n
“We couldn’t see any of the lightning,\u201d he said, \u201cor I don’t remember hearing any of the thunder. And so, we decided to walk back.”<\/p>\n
Charlotte Sachetti Weyand and Amber McManus had just passed the couple on the trail when lightning struck them.<\/p>\n
“There’s a fence along the West Orange Trail right where we were and sparks kind of came off of it along the way, which we could see in our peripheral vision, and then so then we turned around,” Amber McManus said.<\/p>\n
Charlotte immediately called 911.<\/p>\n
“We are on the West Orange trail I think I may need medical assistance,\u201d she\u2019s heard saying in the call.<\/p>\n
Aaron said he remembers being down on the ground after falling face first.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t move my limbs,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn’t, respond the way I wanted to. I wanted to get to Clare, and I just couldn’t get up. I couldn’t really move. And I was in, the worst pain of my life.”<\/p>\n
The good Samaritans said Clare had stopped breathing and she turned blue.<\/p>\n
“Instinctually, I started to CPR, which instinctually is not something I do every day,\u201d Michael Sachetti Weyand said. \u201cI’ve never done CPR before in my life. But in that moment, I knew that I had to start.”<\/p>\n
The Walengas only spent a few days in the hospital. The wounds on Aaron\u2019s face are healing and Clare has overcome short-term memory loss from a concussion.<\/p>\n
Now, they are leaning on their faith during their road to a full recovery.<\/p>\n
“There were so many miracles that we witnessed from Clare being brought back to life,\u201d Aaron said, \u201cto the four of you being there on that trail at that time.”<\/p>\n
While they have not been back yet, Aaron and Clare say they will absolutely be going back for another Wednesday night walk on the West Orange Trail.<\/p>\n
>>Watch the Q&A in the video player below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Couple hit by lightning on Winter Garden trail answers questions on road to recovery WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[36206,156498,6431,62855,7079,160750,3324,1210,90029,46289,1224,139,141,140,132,43087,24617,160749],"class_list":["post-404274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-aaron","tag-clare-walenga","tag-first-responder","tag-florida-couple","tag-good-samaritans","tag-holding-hand","tag-husband","tag-life","tag-lightning-strike","tag-medical-professional","tag-officer","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-police","tag-question","tag-wife","tag-winter-garden-last-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n