Lightning strikes mum’s phone

A relieved mother has credited her mobile phone with saving her life after lightning struck her Walsall home.

But Claire McMahon said she had no home insurance to cover the damage, estimated at around £75,000.

And she said the blaze had left her family with “next to nothing.” Miss McMahon was sitting at the top of the stairs in Goscote Lane, Bloxwich, making a call when lightning hit the roof of the house yesterday.

The bolt deflected off her phone, knocking it out of her hand, and she managed to flee the burning home along with her mother and three youngsters.

Miss McMahon said today the family were “lucky to be alive” and revealed the phone which had saved her was still working.

But the blaze left her unable to save anything from upstairs.

She said she had been unaware that the house, owned by her mother, was not covered by insurance.

She said: “I am not sure what we are going to do; we have lost everything.

“The damage could cost up to £75,000, and I don’t know how we can find that sort of money.”

The 29-year-old managed to avoid the falling roof tiles and escape from the house with her son Chad, 13, nephew Owen, four, and niece Denise, eight, who were downstairs.

Her mother Maureen, 50, also fled the property but was taken to Walsall Manor Hospital suffering from shock.

The mother-of-one said: “I was sitting on the stairs, and there was a massive explosion like a bomb had gone off, and then everything started falling around me.

“The house was shaking, and my first thought was that my guardian angel was looking upon me.

“I was so lucky that my phone took the impact, otherwise I fear what may have happened to me.

“We can’t salvage anything from upstairs like clothes, and have next to nothing left, but we are all fortunate we escaped alive,” she added.