Forsyth Father Saves Son After Lightning Strike

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. - What would you do if your child's life lay in your hands? A Forsyth County father was forced to answer that question, after he and his two sons were struck by lightning. Matt Brady hadn't taken a CPR course since college, but he was determined to do something, anything, to save his son.

Most people always wonder how they'll react in a crisis. Brady faced that moment when his son Riggs was lying in the bed of a pick-up truck in full cardiac arrest and clinically dead.

Brady was the only one there who could save him.

It was late afternoon on July 15.

"It was like one of those beautiful 100 degree days," Brady said.

Brady, a builder and youth lacrosse coach, had promised his boys he'd take them to a motocross track.

"My oldest son Riggs had called me throughout the day along with my son Tucker and said, 'We want to ride, we want to ride!' I said, 'OK.'" recalled Brady.

The Bradys parked under a nearby tree and 11-year-old Tucker and his brother Riggs climbed on their bikes.

"It was sunny coming in and then when everybody rode, we started seeing lightning in the distance," said Tucker Brady.

"Then it started rolling in and it was like that fast," said Matt Brady.

The Bradys scrambled to load their bikes onto a trailer. Riggs Brady was standing in the bed of the truck, and his brother was by the passenger side door. Matt Brady was on the trailer.

"I picked up the ramp and bent over the back of the trailer and as soon as I stood up, it hit," said Matt Brady.

Lightning shot down a nearby tree.

"It picked me up and it threw me off the trailer and I'm laying on the ground and I can't move my arms and I can't move my legs," said the Forsyth County father.

"I just remember getting thrown straight to the ground and I couldn't feel my legs, and it was like static in your ears," said Tucker.

"He's like, 'I'm scared!' and he goes, 'Dad, I can't feel my legs!' and I said, 'It's OK, it's OK, just relax, relax,'" recalled Matt Brady.

Knowing lightning could hit again, the father told Tucker to crawl under the truck.

"All of a sudden, I was getting right near the truck and I yelled, 'Where's Riggs!' said Tucker.

Matt Brady crawled to his oldest son with his hands and legs numb from the shock. "I saw Riggs and I saw that he was gone," he said. "I couldn't feel for a pulse, so I put my mouth on his neck and it was cold. And I remember pulling his eyelids back, to see what I could see, and his eyes had rolled, and I knew, I knew what that meant."

Riggs was in full cardiac arrest, the lighting had stopped his heart.

Fueled by pure adrenaline, Riggs' father started chest compressions and kept trying to revive his son for 10 to 15 minutes until firefighters could get there.

"I had no idea that he was gone. So, I was asking my dad, like, 'I don't want to lose him!'" said Tucker.

When the firefighters first arrived on the scene, it was still pouring and lightning, so they needed to put Riggs on a backboard and move him to the safety of a nearby garage. In order to do that, they asked his father to stop trying to save his son and let them take over.

"He had no pulse and he wasn't breathing, he was in full arrest," said Forsyth County firefighter Jason Kidwell.

"I remember them putting him on a wood board, his arm was hanging off and it's like what you see in a movie," said Matt Brady.

"After about 300 compressions, we got a pulse back on him. And you could actually see his heart beating through his chest, which was amazing," said Kidwell.

Dangling between life and death, Riggs was rushed to Northside Forsyth hospital.

"I remember one doctor coming over and he's just like, 'You saved your son's life!' and I said, 'Keep him alive!'" Brady said.

Riggs Brady spent the spent the next week in the ICU at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

When Riggs came of out his coma, his short-term memory was gone.

"It's been compared to, if you will, a file cabinet getting tipped over, and all his files have fallen out and he's [got to] take his own time, and handle it himself and put his files back in his own thing," said Matt Brady. "It may take a year, it may take six years, it will take however long. And they said, 'You just need to patient, because he's had a lot of trauma.'"

Riggs who remembers nothing about the lightning, has recovered better than doctors or his parent could have expected, and he feels lucky, his father kept the blood flow to his brain.

"If I didn't have him, I probably would have died," said Riggs of his father.

This week, the Bradys went to Forsyth County Fire Station 8 to meet the firefighters who revived Riggs. Each firefighter was awarded a medal with a star symbolizing the life they saved.

"He looks wonderful. And it's just amazing that he's up and talking to us," said Kidwell.

This weekend, a lacrosse tournament will be held in Riggs' honor, offering not just the sport the Bradys love, but lessons on lightning safety and CPR.

Matt Brady says his CPR wasn't perfect, but it was enough,