UNION COUNTY, Tenn. (WVLT) – A 14 year old Union County girl is one in nearly half of a million. That’s because she was actually hit by lightning on June 18th while powerful storms were rolling through East Tennessee.

Madison Honaker and her family sat down with Volunteer TV News six days later to talk about the experience.

“I feel extremely lucky,” Honaker said. “I know what could have happened. I could have died very easily at the flip of a coin.”

The odds when flipping a coin are 50/50. The odds of being struck by lightning are significantly higher. The National Weather Service says your estimated chance of being struck in any given year is 1/400,000. Honaker was struck after opening a sliding glass door into her home and holding onto the door frame.

“I had one hand here and another hand here,” she said while reenacting her position when she was struck. “The lightning traveled somewhere through the door, we could never figure that out, and went through my hand and out the other."

Experts say a single stroke of lightning contains between 100 million and 1 billion volts of electricity with a current averaging around 30 thousand amps. As a comparison, a 100 watt light bulb draws 240 volts at a current of 1 amps.

Honaker was the victim of a contact strike, which occurs when someone is touching an object that has been struck by lightning. The jolt threw her several feet and onto her back. Family members quickly ran to her side.

“I had to really get her to talk to me and focus because she was really confused,” said Marcaira Beeler, Honaker’s mother.

“I was just scared because I didn't know if anything was broken and I couldn't figure out why my hands were burning, ”Honaker said. “I couldn't feel anything. All I could feel is tingling and burning.”

She quickly became aware exactly what happened when she looked at where she had been holding onto the door frame.

“It burned my hand and left a big swollen mark after knocking me back a good two or three feet,” Honaker said. “It just looked like I touched my hand to a cast iron skillet. It was all burned, like when you burn you hand on something.”

Honaker was quickly rushed to the hospital and spent the next three hours hooked up to monitors. Gradually the marks have faded and the burning feeling has mostly subsided.

“There's a little one right there,” she said pointing to her hand. “All of this was swollen. It was all puffed and bruised and I had a slight bruise on my arm.”

Six days later there was little physical evidence of where the bolt went through her, which she credits to those at the hospital who took quick action.

Lightning strikes have killed 15 people so far in 2009. They kill an estimated 70 Americans each year.

For Honaker, her scary brush with Mother Nature makes quite a story to tell her friends at school, but more importantly, she’s just thankful for her quick recovery.