A Staten Island Man's Trip to the Dentist Turned Into a Shocking Experience
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
Thomas Fahmy walked out his door on Staten Island to go get a cavity filled and instead got struck by lightning on a residential sidewalk, caught in full on some neighbor's doorbell camera. You watch the clip and there's no drama to it, no slow build. He's just walking past a picket fence and then there's a flash and a crack and he's on the ground.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
A Staten Island man is lucky to be alive. Thomas Fahmy was walking to a dentist appointment during a storm when he was struck by lightning. The entire thing was caught on a doorbell camera, too. Fahmy, who is a Republican congressional staffer, was seen walking past a white picket fence when there's a bright flash and a clap of thunder.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Thomas Fahmy walked out his door on Staten Island to go get a cavity filled and instead got struck by lightning on a residential sidewalk, caught in full on some neighbor's doorbell camera. You watch the clip and there's no drama to it, no slow build. He's just walking past a picket fence and then there's a flash and a crack and he's on the ground. That's the whole story in about two seconds, and somehow he walked away from it.
We bring this up not because there's some grand lesson buried in a lightning strike, but because the story itself is a reminder of how strange and small the line is between an ordinary Tuesday and a headline. Fahmy happens to work as a Republican congressional staffer, which is probably why this crossed our desk at all, but honestly the politics of it don't matter here. Nobody legislates lightning. Nobody spins it. It just happens, and either you get up or you don't.
What's worth noting is how much of American life now gets recorded by accident. A guy gets hit by lightning outside somebody's house and it ends up as crisp, viewable footage because everyone's got a camera bolted to their front door these days. Twenty years ago this is a story Fahmy tells at dinner parties that half the table doesn't believe. Now it's just there, undeniable, on video.
Glad he's okay. That's really the whole take. Sometimes the news doesn't need a fight attached to it, just a guy who got extraordinarily lucky on the way to the dentist, of all places.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.