"The Day the Lightning Stuck"

In the Summer of 2003, 16 people were struck by a freak lightning storm whilst practicing football on a field somewhere in Birmingham. My daughter Faye who'd gone along to spectate was one of them! when she shown me the injury on her right knee where where a ball of lightning entered there, I instantly recognized the pattern as identical to the constellation in the night sky Cassiopeia.
Read her account of that tragic day below.

        The Constellation Cassiopeia                               Daughters Knee

My Daughters account of that day:
I thought that it was going to be a normal sunday morning when i go to watch my boyfriend Aaron fellows football training.

I was sitting on a blanket in the middle of a field watching my boyfriends team football training, getting ready for the new season.
Myself Mandy and Gary Fellows was all having a laugh and a joke as you do..... then it suddenly began to spit with rain. In the very far distance we heard thunder. Mandy said that if the rain started getting to heavy that we would go and sit in the car. but a few minutes later the rain stopped, and we didn't hear anymore thunder so we didn't think much else of it.
Then two minutes later the sky went really dark and all I heard was a huge loud bang, and wondered what it was, but then all Isaw was what looked like a large ball of water heading toward me not giving enough time to move out of it's path, it hit me on my legs and worked its way through my body, Icouldn't move, it was like I was froze in that one spot. I tried to scream out loud but nothing was coming out of my mouth. All I could see in front of me was Aaron's dad looking over at me and the rest of the football team on the field, I couldn't move my head to the side or anything. it just looked as though the whole of the field was frozen there on one spot....... all in a big bubble.
Then suddenly everyone dropped to the floor and I carried on screaming, eventually the sound came out and everyone started to get up not knowing what had happened..
I looked to the side of me and all that I was able to see was Mandy lying next to me, she looked like a burnt rag doll, covered in black ash and her hair on fire. All of her clothes was burnt and she just lay there on the spot lifeless. Obviously all that everyone could hear was me screaming and saw smoke coming from the area where I lay. My boyfriend Aaron Fellows who had been thrown 5 feet by the strike, heard me screaming and shouthing help, he ran over to me even though he's got a huge fear of fire and with help from his farther they both picked me up and carried me, all I could hear was Aaron shouting out ' someone call an ambulance' they ran me inside for medical attention.
While they took me in, Dave and Gary one of the players and also Gary the trainer, ran over to Mandy and gave her mouth to mouth, they bought her around then the ambulance turned up and rushed Mandy and Myself off to the burns unit at Selly Oak's Hospital.

It turned out that the ball of lightning went through my legs traveling through my body to come out of my rear.
Mandy recieved the strike of lightning that hit the top of the school building and traveled in a straight line, it traveled into the back of her head and came out of her stomach.

However both Myself and Mandy are now fine, up and waking as normal and living our lives not looking back.

Faye Mullins

The Mythological Background of the Constellation Cassiopeia:
Long ago in the country Ethiopia Cassiopeia who was the wife of Cepheus and mother of Andromeda.

Because she thought herself more beautiful than the daughters of Nereus, a god of the sea, she challenged the anger of the god Poseidon. To punish her, her daughter was chained to a rock of the coast as a sacrifice for a sea monster. Andromeda was saved from death by Perseus. (Publius Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosis, IV) To learn humility Cassiopeia was banned to the sky hanging half of the time head downward.