WARNING: The above video contains some graphic language.
When two New Jersey teenage girls were stuck in a beach chairlift in Seaside Heights as a big lightning storm approached, they faced a difficult decision: stay in the metal chairlift, or jump 35 feet to the sandy ground below.
"We freaked out," Melanie Rossomando told NBC New York of the ordeal. "My friend looked at me and she was like, 'We have to jump.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah. We're jumping. That's it, I'm not staying on here. It's a metal death trap.'"
The electricity had gone out, just three stops from the ride exit.
So 17-year-old Rossomando made the jump and thankfully, wasn't too badly hurt.
"The doctor said because she plays sports and had been working out and was getting ready for the upcoming soccer season, that's probably what saved her from getting hurt worse," said her father, said Pete Rossomando. "And the fact that she had the presence of mind not to land on her legs, to land on her side."
Rossomando's friend didn't jump, nor was she struck by lightning. She was returned safely to the ground.
The teens, of course, had every right to be scared. On Saturday, a 48-year-old woman walking on Monmouth Beach in New Jersey was struck and killed by lightning.