Bethany Lott loved mountains. Richard Butler loved Bethany Lott. The couple, from Knoxville, Tennessee, were climbing up Max Patch Bald, a mountain near Ashville, North Carolina. Richard had a ring in his pocket, set on proposing to his girlfriend when they reached the summit. Unfortunately, the mountaintop proposal went horribly wrong as the couple were hit by lightning. Richard suffered third-degree burns; Bethany was killed instantly.
“I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back,” Butler said, not realizing at the time he was hit as well. “My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire.” He tried desperately to get a signal on Bethany’s cell phone, and performed CPR on her for 15 minutes until he realized that she wasn’t coming back.
Heartbreaking, isn’t it? At least she died doing something she loved with the man she loved; you can’t ask for a better way to go than that, but my heart goes out to poor Richard. The mountain hike was his idea, just so he could propose marriage to her in the most romantic place he could think of.
Image: Lightning over Tuscon Mountains by Katherine Burdick
Tags: Knoxville, Tennessee, Ashville, North Carolina, Richard Butler, Bethany Lott, proposal gone wrong, mountaintop proposal, couple hit by lightning, Max Patch Bald, tragic accidents, marriage proposal, unusual accidents, lightning strike