Man struck by lightning still feeling the effects

published on Saturday, August 27, 2005 10:42 PM MDT

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

   PARADISE VALLEY -- Chip Rizzotto can still cast a pretty tight loop and make it look easy.

"I'm pretty shaky though," said the veteran outfitter and fly-casting instructor as he practiced his form Friday on a pond behind his home. "I'm a little weak."

But at least he's alive.

On Aug. 17, while guiding a pair of fishermen, a bolt of lightning struck Rizzotto square on the head. The blast burned a chunk out of his scalp and knocked most of the stitches out of his hat.

It traveled downward, through the left side of his body, then jumped to his right leg before exiting his body. It singed hair from his chest and legs, leaving wounds. It ripped and burned his shirt.

Then it traveled through the ground and knocked his two clients down, briefly paralyzing them from the waist down.

Rizzotto, 69, said he's glad to be alive, but isn't sure if his luck was good or bad.

"It was unlucky I got hit, but I'm lucky I survived," he said Friday at his Paradise Valley home at the base of Emigrant Peak. "I still can't quite believe it."

Rizzotto and his two clients, Jeff Himes of Gulliver, Mich., and Gary Liubakka, of Hibbing, Minn., were fishing on the main stem of Mill Creek that afternoon, working a stretch along a steep and tall bank, which meant the horizon was close at hand. One of the clients had just landed a 21-inch fish, and Rizzotto looked up and saw a storm cell moving in over the nearby slope.

"I heard a clap of thunder and I said, 'OK boys, this is it. We're going back to the barn,'" he said.

Rizzotto carried no rod that day, but told his clients to break down their rods and carry them below waist level as they walked to the car.

That's his last clear memory. He woke up in Livingston Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit a couple days later.

Himes said Friday in a telephone interview that the trio had been keeping an eye on a thunderstorm moving along the Yellowstone River, several miles away. But the sun was shining at Mill Creek and they were nearing the end of the day's angling.

When the cloud appeared overhead, a bolt of lightning struck a ridge a quarter mile away, Himes said. The men started for their vehicle and made it about 300 yards when lightning struck Rizzotto, the tallest of the three at 5'10".

"The next thing I knew, I was on the ground," Himes said. He believes he was knocked unconscious for a moment, because he can't recall hitting the ground, or Liubakka calling his name.

Both Himes and Liubakka found themselves unable to walk. They learned later the lightning had probably "polarized the muscles and tendons in our legs. It was like they'd gone completely asleep, completely numb. Just dead weight."

Rizzotto was in worse shape.

"He was out cold," Himes said. "Like he'd been pole-axed."

The two clients crawled to Rizzotto and found him lying face down. They turned him on his back and found he was breathing, and shortly afterward he began to regain consciousness.

After about 10 minutes, Liubakka regained some sensation in his legs and decided to go for help.

"He was trying to run, with his legs not working right and wearing neoprene waders," Himes said.

Meanwhile, Himes and Rizzotto leaned on each other in a sitting position. Himes wrapped Rizzotto in his fishing vest, trying to keep him warm in what had become a steady rain.

"I tried not to talk about the weather," Himes said. "It was frustrating, not to be able to give him more comfort."

When Liubakka reached the road, he found a ranch employee who raced to a phone and called 911. He also found an angler with a cell phone, who also called 911. Emergency personnel scrambled, briefly thinking that two parties had been struck.

From the time the lightning hit until the ambulance arrived, about 45 minutes passed.

By then, Himes was feeling much better and drove Rizzotto's truck to his home, followed by a deputy sheriff, so he could tell Rizzotto's wife, Francine, what had happened.

By the time she met her husband at the Livingston hospital, he was being prepped and kept repeating "'my arms are on fire,'" Francine Rizzotto said.

The hospital care "was extraordinary," she said, and "the outpouring of support has been almost overwhelming for me."

The Rizzottos have run a fishing lodge here since 1982 and are well known in the local and international angling community.

Francine said one day she had 49 phone messages on her machine, from friends around the world.

Chip Rizzotto said he still suffers from the aftereffects of the strike. He's unsteady on his feet, sees spots before his eyes and has both short-term and long-term memory loss. The worst part, he said, is the pain in his arms, shoulders and chest, and an inability to sleep.

The pain persists because as the lightning traveled through his body it burned a substance called myelin, which forms a protective sheath around nerves.

But his heart, liver and other vital signs look good, and he's determined to travel to several countries this year, pursuing big fish on a fly. He's seeking the help of a physical therapist.

"I'm kind of a driven person," he said. "I've got some goals yet to meet, so I've got to get my body back in shape."

But he's done with outfitting in this area, he said.

"No more," he said. "Last Wednesday was the last day."

He's going to concentrate on other things, he said.

The National Weather Service has a Web site with information about lightning strikes. It says recovery can take a long time, but having a sense of humor is a critical tool.

Rizzotto has that.

"From now on," he said. "I'm only fishing with people who are taller than me."

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