I was in my back yard in Rochester putting together a mountain bike when this strange storm started approaching from the East. In Rochester almost all storms come from the West. There was a lot of lightning bolts going in every direction so I grabbed the bike and my tools and took them inside into my workroom in the basement.
I was standing barefoot on the concrete slab, near a small open window and about 4' from where the main water line came into my house. I was working on the bike with a pair of vise grips in my hand when an instant flash and what sounded like a bomb went off when I felt electricity enter both of my feet, travel up my legs to my arm, the vise grips went flying across the room and the bottoms of my feet hurt like hell for days.
After the storm I went outside and in the yard about 35-40 feet from where I was there was a burned patch of grass about the size of a small plate. It missed the house by 10 feet.
I remember that storm, it started just South of Toronto over Lake Ontario, did a lot of damage in Rochester and killed a couple people who were sleeping in their RV at the state fair. The sky in Rochester was aglow for at least an hour from non stop lightning.