Florida - (Ass mess): The US's top charismatic, evangelical, superstition-peddling preacher Reverend Pat Robertson has finally received the divine omen he has been waiting for all his life as a bolt from the blue struck a fellow fundamentalist wingnut in South Florida during the weekend.
Hailu Kidane Marian arrived from Puerto Rico on a bible-flogging trip and was struck down by a bolt of lightning "from clear blue sky" on Sunday.
"It was the damnest thing I ever see," a witness told reporters today.
"This guy was knocking door-to-door trying to offload books, pamphlets, holy water and Reverend Robertson's Miracle Protein-Defying Ageing Pancake mixture franchises when wham!
"A bolt of lightning came out of the clear blue sunlit sky and whacked him one on the head, like a sign of some humunguous divine displeasure.
"It was awesome I tell you!"
When paramedics arrived Marian lay still in the ground, his hair badly singed with no signs of life such as breathing.
"We had to defibrilate the guy," ambulance crew said. "He'd stopped breathing and his heart was not beating. He looked real bad.
He was taken to the local Jackson Memorial hospital where he has remained in a coma.
Hospital staff issued a statement today saying this was the second time since June that a fundamentalist religious salesman has been struck by a bolt of lightning "from a clear blue sky on a beautiful sunny day".
A spokesman for Pat Robertson said today that the TV evangelist has suddenly cancelled his Florida vacation plans and may also be reviewing his life insurance policies "to clarify the 'Acts of God' clauses" which preclude paying out if something similar ever happened to him.
