A student who survived being struck by lightning TWICE has put his good fortune down to the £3 umbrella hat he was wearing at the time.
Matt Wilks was wearing the colourful headwear he’d bought for a pub crawl last week when he was hit by two separate bolts.
The 19-year-old told the Isle of Wight County Press: “ It felt weird, like being hit on the head really hard.
“There was this bright flash as a fork of lightning splintered above us, and that’s when I felt it hit me.”
Wilks suffered dizzy spells and the twin bolts sent his heart racing following the incident in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.
But he thinks his eBay purchase saved his life: “"At 6ft 4ins I was the tallest thing in the field and the lightning probably would have hit me no matter what, so the fact the hat took the brunt of it probably saved me from being electrocuted.”
Wilks was checked over by doctors at Ryde A&E, who told him he should buy a lottery ticket while his luck was so strong.