By Jessob Reisbeck
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KENOSHA COUNTY, Wisconsin (WDJT) — It’s Lightning Awareness Week, and every year, about 270 people are struck by lightning in the United States.
Seven years ago, that statistic hit close to home at Country Thunder in Kenosha County.
Country Thunder is a four-day music fest that brings some of the biggest names in country music to the little village of Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, every summer.
Brittney Prehn grew up about 30 minutes south in Woodstock, Illinois. She looked forward to the party every year.
“It was just something fun to get away. I remember saving up money, pitching our money together or babysitting extra. ‘Can I take the scraps to the junkyard to get some extra money?'” Prehn says.
Country Thunder 2018 — Friday, July 20. A storm rolled in. Brittney was walking and talking on her cellphone.
“I just remember before, it was just a basic day,” Prehn says. “I remember it raining a lot. Like really hard, like at an angle. I remember walking. I was trying to meet up with a friend and we were like right by each other. And then I don’t remember anything.”
Brittney was struck by lightning.
“The bolt hit, direct hit to the head, and it took my phone and went flying, I guess. You can see the two holes where I was standing and then the hole where the phone went,” Prehn says. “It actually saved my life. It took part of the bolt away from me.”
“They peeled the screen protector off my face. They didn’t know it was on there, it was melted,” she says. “I had scars, I had burns everywhere.”
The bolt entered the right side of her head, traveled through her body, down her legs, and out her feet. In the matter of milliseconds, it severed her spine. Her brain was bleeding, her spine was leaking, and it took away her hearing for good.
After about a week in the Intensive Care Burn Unit, Brittney had to learn how to walk again and communicate, being deaf. She battled terrible headaches, PTSD, anxiety and depression.
“My biggest fear was not being able to have a family,” Prehn says.
And that’s what she was told — that kids were no longer an option. And she believed it for about five years, until 2023, when she started feeling a little different.
“Everybody was making me angry, and I was getting in the shower and crying, and I was like, what is wrong with me? I thought I was going crazy,” Prehn says. “And I was pregnant!”
Little baby Dawson was born in January of 2024.
“I just can’t believe he’s mine,” she says. He’s so cute!”
Brittney is now about to have baby number two, a little girl due in August.
“He knows he has a sister coming,” Prehn says.
Brittney will forever battle the long-term physical and mental effects of being struck that day, but through all the procedures and medicine and therapy, the most healing thing has been the kids.
“I was afraid to go out in public. Afraid of everything. And then having children just helps you get up in the morning,” Prehn says.
“You see that white patch? He has one white streak,” Prehn says. “And he was born with it, and it’s on the same side that I got hit by lightning. So, I say he got kissed by an angel.”
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