Zita Oliveria: Meet The Mom Bullied For Knowing How Lightning Works

Mom Zita Oliveria is kind of like the one “The End Is Nigh” nut in every apocalyptic movie who ends up being right in the end. Sadly, the Ottawa woman was bullied by other parents recently for basically paying attention in school and understanding where it’s not okay to take shelter during a lightning storm.

We’ll explain.

Oliveria was kicked off a soccer field because she and her son didn’t take shelter under a tree during a thunderstorm. As dark clouds began to form over the field and thunder and lightning were spotted in the distance, the coaches rounded the kids up and shepherded them under the trees surrounding the soccer field.

But Zita Oliveria thought that was a ridiculous idea and refused to have her son stand under the tree with his teammates. It might sound like a strange protest, but Oliveria was 100 percent right: During a lightning storm, trees turn into people-bug-zappers.

“I learned that in school, I think we all kind of did,” she recalled of her decision not to take shelter under the tree. “(The tree) is the highest point, it conducts electricity.”

She says that one of the coaches tried to persuade her to take shelter under the tree several times. She repeatedly refused, with one coach ultimately telling her she had to leave the field entirely if she wasn’t going to come under the tree with everyone else.

Oliveria says several coaches joined in the apparent shouting match, as well as a few parents. One asked her why she was being “so irrational and difficult.”

They kept asking her if she thought she was “above the law” and told her to “take her son and leave.”

Though it would seen poetically just for everyone under the tree to be zapped to death, the storm passed over without incident. Oliveria now says that she is not sure whether her son will be invited back.

“I was ganged up on because I refused to stand under the trees for my own safety reasons,” Zita Oliveria said, noting that she felt she was bullied by the coaches. “It’s bizarre and that’s what concerned me the most.”

[Image via: Bokic Bojan / Shutterstock]