DENVER -- A teenager who survived a lightning strike over the weekend has quite a survival story to tell his friends at school.

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Lightning Survivor Describes What Happened.

Matt Thomsen, 17, of Bailey (pictured, left), was struck Sunday while four-wheeling with his friends on Webster Pass, about 6 miles from Keystone.

Lightning struck him in the chest when he stepped out of his pickup truck to walk up to the Red Cone summit.

"I got to the top. It was pretty cloudy, elevation 12,801 feet. We were ... a couple feet from top. That's when it happened," said Thomsen. "I woke up and had a hole in my shirt. (I felt) kinda sketchy and shaky."

The bolt of lightning struck him in the right chest and seared a hole in his shirt. His pant leg was also ripped open and there was a hole in his right shoe, where the bolt exited.

"My foot really hurt. I couldn't hear out of my right ear. I didn't know what was going on, and everyone was freaking out and scared," Thomsen said.

Thomsen's tongue ring was also blown out of his mouth. A dark spot on his tongue shows where the tongue bolt once was.

"It was a bright red flash and a bang and I thought someone was shooting at us, but it was too loud to be a gun. I just ran. I turned around and I saw he was laying there and I ran over to him and he was smoking," said Thomsen's friend Chris Allen.

Thomsen wasn't breathing, but Allen and another friend, Jessica Folsom, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and saved his life.

The Platte Canyon High School seniors said they had never revived anyone before and only learned of the technique by watching television.

Thomsen and his parents are grateful that his classmates acted so quickly.

"It's a miracle. It feels good to be breathing again," Thomsen said.

He said the wound feels like a giant case of sunburn and he still has pain in his right eye and cannot hear in his right ear.

Doctors at St. Anthony Hospital Central said Thomsen is in good condition except for the burns and some hearing loss. He will have to be monitored for the next year for any psychological or neurological problems.

The teen said in the future he'll be more aware of his surroundings. As for the tongue ring, it is either still on mountain or Thomsen swallowed it. But the teen isn't worried.

"My sister is sending me a new one," he said, smiling.