BRIGHT, Ind. -- Few people are ever hit by lightning. Even fewer live to tell the tale. Wendell Hansel is one of them.

Hansel, 37, said he was going outside to check his boat Sunday afternoon when the world exploded in front of him, reported WLWT-TV in Cincinnati.

"I heard the sirens going off at the firehouse, and I walked out to my truck, leaned up against it looking for tornadoes, because I have my boat here in my driveway," he said.

"Next thing I know, a large flash of light goes off in my face and blows me back off the truck and I feel a lot of electricity going through my body," Hansel said. "It was almost like an M80 went off right in my face, and then I felt the electricity go through my body and out my hands.

"I didn't really realize what happened, and then I ran to the garage, and I realized I got struck by lightning," he said.

Hansel was sent to Dearborn County Hospital in Lawrenceburg, Ind., where he was treated and released.

"Right now, I just have cold chills from my upper body up. It's like, I don't know, probably from my body tightening up from the electricity going through it," he said.

The siren Hansel heard before being hit was accidentally activated by a lightning bolt.

The National Weather Service says the U.S. has averaged 50 lightning fatalities each year for the past 30 years.

As for Hansel, he said he's also picked up a new nickname from his experience: Flash.