Man previously struck by lightning now recovering from COVID-19
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OAHU, Hawaii (KITV) — The odds of being struck by lightning are low, but it happened to one Oahu man last year. His story went viral, and since then lightning didn’t strike twice, but something more common did. He’s now recovering from COVID-19, and is sharing his story in hopes people take the virus seriously.
Aumauinuuese Puni went viral in a video he shot at work on a Waikiki rooftop of a storm last April. He was struck by lightning on Facebook live. Remarkably, other than a burning sensation in his head and hands, he was okay, and was even cracking jokes.
“Maybe it’s a cure for coronavirus get shock or hit by lightning,” he joked at the time. But turns out that may have been foreshadowing. Recently, Puni was stricken with COVID-19.
“All joking aside I know I said hey the cure for COVID is getting struck by lightning you know last time but I personally would never test COVID,” he says. Puni says despite wearing masks and following protocols, the virus spread through his family.
“It spread and it hit everybody in the household all 8 of us and I thought I was pretty healthy and precautios and everything but it went through our whole household and I got the worst of it,” he says.
It was so bad, Puni had to be hospitalized. “I don’t wish this on anyone,” he says. Puni is now back home recovering – now a survivor a second time, he has a message for the community to mask up and stay safe.
“It’s hard you know to be told what to do, but in reality it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
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