Pregnant Mom Hit by Lightning Gets a Second Chance

Meghan Davidson and her newborn were placed in ICU
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted May 12, 2018 2:35 PM CDT
Pregnant Mom Hit by Lightning Gets a Second Chance
A pregnant woman is seen in this stock photo.   (Getty Images)

Even lightning couldn't stop Meghan Davidson from having a loving family. The Florida woman was nine-months pregnant when lightning struck her last year, stopping her heart and the heart of her unborn son Owen—and plunging her family into uncertainty for weeks, the News-Press reports. Already a mother of two, she went into ICU with a collapsed lung, bruised heart, and burns, while Owen was born by emergency C-section and placed in neonatal intensive care. "He just started looking, like, not alive at times," says her husband Matthew, who stayed with Owen while Meghan recovered. They eventually took Owen off life support when he showed little to no brain activity. "We prayed about it and prayed about it," says Meghan. "We had a prayer meeting about it."

Devoted Baptists, they say their religious faith kept them strong. "I have a picture in my mind of Jesus holding [Owen]," says Meghan. They also relied on physical fitness—her recovery included 5K runs on Thanksgiving and Christmas—and they received a much more pleasant shock when she got pregnant again. "I was so excited and relieved and thankful," says Meghan. "I didn't think 100% I could get pregnant again." Now she's nursing a baby bump at their Fort Myers home and looking forward to child number four. But she was ready to sacrifice everything for the son whose due date was just seven days away, CBS News reported last year. "As a mother, I'd give my life for my child," she says. "If I had a choice it would have been 'take me instead'." (More lightning stories.)

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