At a wedding in an apple orchard in New Brunswick, Canada, just over the border from Maine, J.P. Nadeau, the father of the bride, was giving the customary toast while some storm clouds gathered behind him. He didn’t notice the storm brewing until …

Lightning struck, first hitting the sound system and then traveling into the microphone in Nadeau’s hand. “And I’m looking at my hand and it’s all flared up,” Nadeau told the CBC. “It was like I was holding a lightning bolt in my hand, it was amazing.”

The father was shocked, but quickly realized he was not seriously injured—just a small “scorch mark” on his thumb, and a bum knee that “actually feels a bit better.”

What did everyone do next? What else? They continued with the celebration. “It was a beautiful wedding,” Nadeau’s wife told the CBC. “But that was pretty terrifying for a second.”

Nadeau says he’s had other close calls in the past—he was once rescued from a fiery cruise ship off the Falkland Islands by the British Royal Air Force—but has always emerged a survivor. “I’ve had lots of brushes with death,” Nadeau said. “But death keeps ignoring me.”