Cooking with electricity: chef struck by lightning, then branch falls on car

Wes Watts, 32, was standing in directly in a lightning bolt's path when it struck the famous Anglers Inn in Guildtown, Perthshire.

It sent him flying across his kitchen, but Mr Watts was able to walk away shaken but unharmed.

Incredibly, death took two more unsuccessful swipes at him as he was being driven home to recover.

He was close to his home on Perth's Dundee Road when their car was hit by a falling branch.

And, as Mr Watts, his boss Gawaine Maxwell, and another staff member went to move it, a second huge branch crashed to the road where he had been standing seconds earlier.

The father-of-one, a sous chef at the Anglers, said: "We were due to open for lunch when snow, thunder and lightning hit Guildtown all at once.

"We were talking about how unusual it was and how close the lightning seemed, but we kept on prepping for lunch as usual.

"A few moments later I was standing near a metal grille door in the kitchen when I was hit by lightning.

"It was just a massive blue flash and an incredibly loud bang and then I could see the back of my eyeballs.

"It lifted me off my feet and threw me about three feet away from where I was standing."

Mr Watts was offered a lift to the hospital but asked instead to be taken home.

He said: "I was almost home when the car was hit by a branch - I got out and helped move it only for another branch to fall where I had been standing. I thought to myself that I should just start walking after that.

"People tell me I should have bought a Lotto ticket." The lightning passed through the Angler's restaurant, fusing appliances, melting a broadband router and damaging a water bath used to prepare meat.

Owner Gawaine Maxwell said: "After the lightning strike and the car incident, I wouldn't have been surprised if Wes had gone home and locked himself in a cupboard.