Austin Melton, 14-Year-Old Boy Struck By Lightning: "I Like Sparky" As A Nickname

Last week, 14-year-old Oregon boy Austin Melton was struck by lightning at the edge of a parking lot at his high school.

He was taken to a local hospital in critical condition before being flown to Legacy Emanuel in Portland, where he was treated in the burn unit.

The teen-ager's father, Chuck Melton, told KTVZ-TV in Bend that the lightning struck his son's head. He suffered a broken eardrum and severe burns on his ankle.

On Monday's Today show, however, Austin said he was doing well and no longer feeling much pain. As for his new nickname at school, Austin said he'd prefer "Sparky."

Watch:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Comments

[ImaSpeakonit]

Wow! All this chit chat about his looks and very little about his well-being? The boy was struck in the head by lightening people and he lived to tell the tale! Can't we just be happy for him and his family? Sheesh!

[rumblingspire]

thanks. i am wanting to get to work. now, i can leave.

[astroyo]

What a miracle! He's really cute and I love his hair. I'm, however, very disturbed by the people who are commenting about his hair! These ignorant comments from people on this "progressive" blog are shocking! The culture has unfortunately regressed so much in terms of tolerance.

[gbrooks]

Well, he does look just like my best friend when I was 13, who was a girl. It's not that he has long hair, it's that it's a girl's style.

[rjhuntington]

Not nearly as pretty as your post is stupid.

[JackiChan]

Miracle girl is pretty amazing and doesn't afraid of anything!

[rumblingspire]

chew on this homophobes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVk4jQt7pMk

[Sheeeeeit]

That was awesome!

[rumblingspire]

and what is wrong with looking like a girl?

[SparkyAdams]

You're the one to know. So tell us.

[rumblingspire]

nothing.

[lovesholiday]

nothing if you are a girl

[ginxy]

You people must either be a bunch of old farts or incredibly shallow.

Seriously. You're all in a tizzy over this kids hair?

I'm just glad he's ok. A lightening strike like that would normally kill a person or seriously disable for life.

[CellarDoor]

Amazing what people will say and do when they don't understand something as arbitrary as the length of a person's hair. How many years before humanity grows out of this childish prejudice about a person's appearance and the need to judge negatively without reason or personal knowledge?

Tell me if you can...how should this kid look? What would make you have no comment? What would be "appropriate"? Crew cut hair tucked under a baseball cap? Chewing gum? Jeans and a t-shirt? Is that "boy" enough for you? How about a newspaper delivery route on a tiny bicycle? Firecrackers baseball card collections?

We like to talk and laud ourselves on how far we've come in terms of an 'accepting' society but when yet another arbitrary physical characteristic does not meet with said society's rigidly "accepted" paradigm, the comments are as predictable as they are telling. Am I reading to much into your comments? Perhaps, but then this is a "progressive" website and from what I see, many of you seem to have one foot firmly planted in the 40's and the other firmly planted in the 50's.

Respect to you AND your differences.

[JackiChan]

She's very pretty.

[SiberianRat]

Amen. I wonder how many of these people have children. Sometimes I think that the US deserves all of the crud it's going through--look at the kind of people we have. Even "adults" still act like they're high school freshmen. In some years, we're gonna be totally skrood because a bunch of immature self-important egomaniacs who think they're better than everyone else are gonna be running things. Let's hope China does a good job at the helm, because we're fallin fast.

[Paulo1]

"bunch of immature self-important egomaniacs who think they're better than everyone else are gonna be running things"

I thought we just unelected the Republicans ? They coming back ?

Who'd a thunk

[SiberianRat]

The ones talking about his gender on this thread are friggin d!kheds. Grow up! He's far more mature than many of the people here.

[rumblingspire]

if i could grow long hair again, I would just to anger these d!kheds. Have they been living in a cave. Not since the 60's has long hair been only for women.

[CigarGod]

As a child of the 60's, I am amazed at all the comments about his hair and questions about his gender. I thought we were over that.

[blastocyst]

So much for discernment post-Purple Haze eh?

'Scuze me while I kiss the sky.

[blastocyst]

That photo's supposed to be representative of a "boy"?
What did the lightning do to 'him'?

[Mother77]

I can't believe the pettiness of these comments about this kid's appearance. Get over it. We already had the Sixties. I think the kid is striving for his individuality, not like you drones!

[NPA]

Yeah someone should tell this kid "we already had the sixties". LOL Get a hair cut!

[MalloMel]

LOL! Well, he could get a haircut, and he would look just fine. If that picture is a representation of you, it would take much more than a haircut for you.

[ConcernedAmerican]

He'd get a haircut if he was striving for individuality. He looks like the rest of the boys these days....

[bobdob]

Today's "rebels" don't express themselves by letting their hair grow. They do it through tats and piercings and dreads. And when I say "they", I mean ALL of them. There's a new flock of sheep in town, and they're all convinced that they're totally expressing themselves in a radical way. Who'da thought that a tattoo or a pierced nose would end up being a sign of social conformity?

[PJMS]

According to several local news stories he's growing his hair to donate to an organization that makes wigs for chemotherapy patients.

[WSAY]

That's a boy?

[Mark701]

Yeah, I was wondering that too.

[rjhuntington]

dumb and dumber

[annabellejp]

Sorry, but does bad hair conduct lightning by chance....the effect of the strike then being a cathartic biological change of some sort??
The reverse of an early Grey's Anatomy episode I just watched last night....