Shepherd Mike Jenkins says he has used five of his nine lives after being struck by lightning on a farm near Wairoa.
The 58-year-old has blurry vision in his left eye and a hole "the size of a one-cent piece" in his heel after the lightning strike on Tuesday.
Mr Jenkins was working on a fence line on a Mangaruhe West property, at Marumaru, when a storm hit and he heard a "snap" about 20m away. When he reached out to pick up his metal rammer, he was slammed to the ground.
"I woke up and I felt like someone had booted me in the chest," he said. "My eyes were sore and I could hear my dogs yelping."
Mr Jenkins was wearing heavy gumboots and reckons those saved him.
He was admitted to Wairoa Hospital for observation and visited an eye specialist in Napier yesterday.