Good Samaritan honored for helping Staten Island man after lightning strike

A man on Staten Island survived a lightning strike last week, and Friday, the kind stranger who helped him was honored.

On Aug. 27, Thomas Fahmy was walking back to his car on Todt Hill Road in Castleton Corners after a dentist appointment. He was walking near a tree on the sidewalk when he says he saw a bright white flash.

Video from Stefanie Homan's front door shows the lightning strike and Fahmy falling to the ground.

"The initial sensation throughout my body was numbing, tinglingness, and pain in both of my feet," he said. "I was beginning to scream, 'Help, help, help,' because of just, I was so confused and I was so much in pain, and I was very scared that I would be struck by lightning again."

Homan came to the door, and video shows Fahmy asking if he can come inside. Homan can be heard replying, "Sure, yes, please, God, come. Are you OK? I'm calling an ambulance for you."

When she called 911, Homan says, operators told her there wasn't much she could do to help him.

"They said, 'No water, no food. He can't touch water,'" she said.

Even so, Homan said she was happy she was able to offer him a place to calm down while he waited for first responders to arrive.

"Just a harrowing, crazy, miraculous, every type of feeling emotion you could feel," Fahmy said.

Fahmy says he was in the hospital for about 12 hours, where he was examined and underwent a series of blood tests before being released.

On Friday, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who Fahmy is a caseworker for, awarded Homan with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition.

"There is not a Staten Islander who doesn't either have a friend or a relative who is a cop or a firefighter or a first responder, so I think it's our instinct to run to help people," Malliotakis said.

Homan, who is a new mom and married to an FDNY firefighter, did just that.

"Always help someone in need and just spread the kindness of that," she said.

Fahmy, meanwhile, was back to work less than a week later and says he tested his luck by playing the lottery, though he didn't win anything.

"I won a second opportunity at life, that's it," he said.