A family home caught fire after being struck by a lightning bolt.
A subsequent gas leak, due to a fractured pipe, went undiscovered for eight hours.
Homeowner Lai Lee feels “very lucky” after neither she nor her daughter were injured in the freak incident.
Ten-year-old Yan was asleep on the settee in the living room of the house in Riverside Park, in the Clay Lake area of Spalding. Just a couple of metres away an electric socket and aerial point – next to a television set and tall glass display unit – were blown off the wall.
Lai said: “If the TV screen or display unit had shattered, she could have been covered in glass.”
Incredibly, the youngster slept through the drama.
The lightning bolt, which struck the aerial, came during a violent storm across South Holland on Saturday.
It was 1.30am when Lai became worried by one particular loud crack.
She raced out of bed and was shocked to be confronted by a smoke-filled front room.
“I thought it was a fire so I woke my daughter and we got out. Then my neighbours knocked at the door to tell me there was a fire outside.”
Lai and Yan went to a relative’s home nearby – but when they returned at 9.30am they were greeted by an overwhelming smell of gas.
Lai – owner of Pinchbeck takeaway New Kamble until last year – said: “I had heard a gushing sound earlier but thought it was rainwater.
“There is damage to the house but we were very lucky.”
The strike caused a power outage and hit phone lines.
In May last year, a house in nearby Stonegate was damaged by lightning.
