A MOTHER was taken to hospital after lightning struck her family's home in Stoke Heath, Bromsgrove.

The roof of their detached house in Tythe Barn Close was severely damaged by a freak bolt of lightning shortly before 8am last Friday. It left a gaping hole in the roof above the bathroom.

A neighbour said thunder had been heard in the distance when suddenly he heard a 'loud crack' causing his children to scream.

His wife then spotted smoke billowing from the house and called the fire brigade.

The concerned neighbour ran across the road and helped the mother and her two children, a boy and a girl, out of the house. The children were taken cared for by neighbours.

The woman, who has not been named, was taken by ambulance to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch for what are believed to be non-serious cuts and bruises to her head caused by broken glass and for treatment for shock.

The family have asked that their name not be revealed.

The early Midsummer Day storms brought an abrupt end to last week's heat wave, which had sent temperatures in Bromsgrove sizzling into the eighties.

Some areas in the district were hit by heavy storms, while places just a mile or so away escaped with relatively light rain.

Although some rural roads were temporarily flooded, mainly through water running off the parched fields, the emergency services reported that they had not received any distress calls.

pete.lammas@midlands.

newsquest.co.uk