It was Easter Sunday last year when retiree Stephen Bowskill decided to clear up a tree which had been struck by lightning on his isolated property at Cessnock in the NSW Upper Hunter.

In a split second, it was on top of him.

“I saw it coming at me from the left side and bang, I didn’t see stars, I saw to infinity,” he told 7NEWS.

He lay alone, neck shattered and sinking into his chest, two brain bleeds, hyperventilating. “I was lying on my back thinking I’m not going to get found,” he remembers. “I was making my amends… getting ready to go, you know?”

Unable to move or call for help and a fair distance from his house, it was his loyal dog Callie, who didn’t leave his side, who knew something was wrong.

“I heard Callie,” Bowskill’s partner Noelene Whilesmith said. “She was moaning and

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