Thaindian News

After hiking to the top of North Carolina’s Max Patch Bald, Richard Butler took and engagement ring out of his pocket in preparation of asking Bethany Lott to marry him. Before the ring was out of his hand, however, a bolt of lightening zipped down from the skies, and instantly killed the bride to be.

Butler braved the stormy skies and scattered showers to hike to a spot that his love had wanted to go ever since they had started dating, 4600 feet up on a North Carolina Mountain located on the Tennessee border. Butler’s mother, Janet Delaney told the Associated Press that Lott loved the mountains. “She hiked thousands of miles and spent a couple of years in Utah just hiking.”

Butler described the events which took away his future bride, “She was probably five feet in front of me, so given the incline, she was a good bit higher than me, but it jumped to me,” he shared with the ‘Citizen-Times’ in Asheville. “I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back. My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire.”

“She didn’t say anything, and I turned around and she was laying a few
feet away, and I crawled to her. I did CPR for probably 15 minutes and the whole time was trying her cell phone, but I couldn’t get anything out.”

Because of his own third degree burns, he was not able to carry Lott down the mountain, so he had to leave her and drive to the first home he found. A father, and his son, who was on leave from the Navy spent maybe 20 minutes doing everything they could for Lott before the rescuers got there, according to Butler.

The rescue workers were unable to save her, sadly, but they did allow Butler to place the ring on her finger. He was listed as her fiance in the obituaries. Both Butler and his fiance were from Knoxville, Tennessee. As the friends and family of the city should be celebrating the joy of an upcoming wedding, and related events, instead they will be laying the body of 25 year old Bethany Lott to rest. Her last words, as she looked out at the view of the storm in the mountains, “God, baby, look how beautiful it is.”