During a thunderstorm on July 6, Benton resident Sharon Witham noticed that a canopy in her backyard was being whipped around. She feared it would blow over toward a neighbor's home, so she dashed out the door, grabbed one of the canopy's metal poles and began to "mash it down."
Witham said it then occurred to her that having metal in her hand probably wasn't a good idea.
"I had that pole in my hand and I thought, 'I better let that go,'" she said. "All of a sudden I saw light out of the corner of my eyes, I was knocked backward and I heard a bang. It sounded like dynamite exploding."
