Paper: Orlando Sentinel, The (FL)
Title: LIGHTNING HITS GIRLS HOLDING UMBRELLA
ONE IS IN A COMA AND ONE IS IN STABLE CONDITION AS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
PRAY FOR THEIR RECOVERY.
Date: August 26, 2004

Ten-year-old Erika Chappelle jumped off the school bus at her apartment
complex Wednesday as she normally did.

And, as she normally did in the pounding rain, she opened an umbrella.
Huddled under the umbrella, Erika and a friend dashed through water
puddles toward their apartments at Hawthorn Groves in west Orange County.

They never reached their homes.

Lightning struck the umbrella, and both girls were knocked to the
asphalt parking lot. Erika remained in a coma in critical condition late
Wednesday at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando, her
father said. Her friend Samantha Olivencia, 10, was in stable condition
at Ocoee's Health Central on Wednesday night.

Two other friends who also live in the sprawling complex leaped off the
bus and ran behind Erika and Samantha without an umbrella. One was
Stephanie Olivencia, 10, twin sister of Samantha. Stephanie and a boy
were not directly hit by lightning, but they said they felt "tingling."
They were taken to Health Central for observation and released.

Stephanie recalled hearing what she called "the big thunder" when she
ran in the pelting rain.

"I saw the lightning come down and hit a tree," said a shaken Stephanie
shortly after being discharged from Health Central. "I saw the lightning
bounce off the tree and hit Erika and my sister's umbrella."

Stephanie said she then saw Erika and Samantha sprawled on the ground.

"I thought they were playing a joke,'' Stephanie said. "We ran over
there and saw they weren't joking.''

At Arnold Palmer, Erika's father, James Chappelle, said he and his wife
would spend the night at Erika's hospital bed, talking to her and
holding her hands.

Chappelle, pastor of a ministry called Heart for the Family, said that
about a month ago, he, his wife and their five daughters were at church
on Sunday when he felt God speaking to him. That night, he told his wife
and daughters that God had warned him that the family would endure a
heavy trial, but that they would pull through stronger than before.

On Wednesday night, Chappelle reminded Erika of that revelation.

"Erika, you know what we talked about in church that night," Chappelle
told his unconscious daughter, rubbing her hand. "This is what God was
talking about. You have to fight and be strong."

Chappelle said doctors were hopeful because there was no bleeding in her
brain. But he said it took paramedics about 20 minutes to revive
Erika.Carol Russ, principal of William Frangus Elementary School, where
the four students are fourth-graders, was at Arnold Palmer, comforting
the family.

So was Erika's grandmother, Barbara Maye, and several other family
members, teachers and friends.

"We're all praying she'll make it," Maye said of Erika.

The accident comes about a month after a 41-year-old woman on a boating
trip with her family was struck by lightning and killed in Brevard
County. Stephanie Anderson died instantly when a bolt hit her while she
huddled under a tree with her 10-year-old son, who was critically injured.