Home Care In Cowpens, SC

COWPENS, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - Officials with Cherokee County Emergency Services said crews responded to reports of a woman struck by lightning Saturday.

The victim, Shyane Gosnell, said she was with and her friend, Porsha Staley, and their young daughters at Cowpens National Battlefield when she was hit by lightning. She said storms rolled in quickly and unexpectedly.

“The storm came out of nowhere, and it came on very, very quickly,” Gosnell recalled being told by emergency responders. “Nobody knew it was about to storm like this.”

All five sought shelter in a picnic pavilion as strong winds knocked down trees, according to Gosnell.

Gosnell said she pushed the children against a brick wall and shielded them from the storm. That’s when she was struck by lightning in her leg.

“Immediately, I felt the shock through my leg and it went all the way up to my body. My hearing went out just for a second,” Gosnell said. “It felt like fire, like a burning pins and needles shock.”

Gosnell said the lightning strike left her unable to feel her legs, causing her to rely on her 10-year-old daughter to take charge and relay information to emergency dispatchers while Staley left to go get help.

“She was like a grown-up,” Gosnell said. “She was like, ‘Mom, you need to do this... Girls, let’s remain calm, we got this.’”

Staley recalls having to navigate fallen trees on the way to her car.

Fire crews reported more than 20 trees were downed inside the park due to the storm.

When trying to re-enter the park, Staley said the gate was locked. She said EMS personnel also has some issues getting inside as the gate was locked early.

Staley said she went into fight-or-flight mode after Gosnell was struck by lightning.

“I gotta save my friend,” Staley said. “This is not only my friend, like my child looks at her also like a mama figure.”

Gosnell was taken to the hospital by EMS, and was released just hours later.

“We took our children to have a good time, and then this happened,” Gosnell said. “That was not on my Bingo card for this year.”

Those interested in donating to help pay for Gosnell’s medical expenses can click here.

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CHEROKEE COUNTY, S.C. —

A Boiling Springs woman is recovering after being struck by lightning at Cowpens National Battlefield Saturday afternoon.

Shyane Gosnell was walking around the national park with her friend and their daughters when the storm occurred.

Radar data shows a severe storm quickly strengthened around 4:40 p.m. Saturday in northwestern Cherokee County — right over the park. At one point the storm produced more than 60 lightning strikes within a 15-minute period.

Gosnell said the storm developed so quickly that there was no time to get to sturdy shelter. She said they were about a mile and a half from the car, so they all sought shelter under a picnic shelter.

"We could barely see outside the sides of the picnic area. We saw trees bent over touching the ground," recounts Gosnell. The wind was so bad, and the rain was coming down ... you could barely see anything. It was coming down so hard and fast; all you could see was gray. And it was so loud. Every couple of seconds, all you could hear was a bomb go off," Gosnell said.

Keep up with what's happening around our area by downloading the WYFF News 4 app on the App Store or Google Play.

Gosnell said being struck was scary and painful.

"I was shocked from behind on my right leg. I felt it go all the way up my leg; I felt it go all the way up my body. And I shocked my daughter in the leg," Gosnell said. It felt like a fiery pins-and-needles sensation — it was very painful. It was quick, but it was very painful," recounts Gosnell.

It's important to note summer storms can develop fast. Lightning usually strikes up to three miles outside of the storm cloud; however, lightning has the ability to hit 10 to 15 miles away. If you hear thunder, you are close enough to the storm to be struck by lightning.

Gosnell has lingering nerve and cognitive impacts from Saturday's incident. She has set up a GoFundMe to help with medical bills and household expenses.

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Rich Ashford, an arborist and relative newcomer to the town of Cowpens, SC, is going to court over his garden.

The conflict stems from a dispute about the height of what Ashford is growing in his front yard. Town ordinances say that the yard is overgrown, while Ashford contends that his garden qualifies for an exception for “cultivated gardens.” He says his property is a state-recognised natural wildlife habitat.

Though the town ordinance is clear, legal experts think Ashford has a pretty good chance to beat the case — or that the town will need to change how it polices this issue.

Ashford originally had no plans to become a homeowner in the town of Cowpens, but the Ohio native bought a house on the town’s main street back in 2020.

“I got tricked by this big, beautiful Victorian home,” he tells Realtor.com. “I got a smoking deal on this old Victorian house that was in really, really bad condition and had been neglected for 30-plus years.”

Ashford, in his telling, has become a well-known part of the community in the small town over the past few years. He left his career in banking soon after arriving in the town to pursue arborist work full time, with an emphasis on working with the land.

“It’s ecosystems, it’s natives, it’s xeriscaping, it’s using what you have at your disposal as opposed to trying to force a yard to look like a certain thing,” he says.

The lawn and grass around Ashford’s home is kept in such a way to encourage bees and other pollinators. Photo: Rich Ashford

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His emphasis on native plants and wanting “nature to do its thing” is part of what led him to approach his own yard differently. The previous owner, Ashford says, had covered the front yard in pea gravel and displayed tombstones there. As a result, when he bought the property, the soil was “trash.”

He filled the area with mulch, but everything that grew in failed to hold the topsoil, which would wash away in the rain and create mud and mess.

Native plants in Ashford’s front lawn. Photo: Rich Ashford

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“So what do I do? Easy solution: what grows in ground where other stuff doesn’t grow? … natives,” he says.

Ashford had previously experimented with natives in his backyard to some success, and he decided to plant an “Upland Meadows” mix from Ernst Conservation — a native seed producer — along with a wildflower and pollinator butterfly garden mix, between his two water oak trees out front.

The resulting growth included grasses, native oats, and blooming flowers. Quickly, the garden was attracting pollinators and wildlife that the old yard never could.

“I get lots of pollinators, lots of butterflies out front, bees of all varieties. We’re starting to get some migratory birds,” Ashford says.

It also attracted the attention of his neighbours. Ashford was prepared for pushback in a town where most people tend to plant flowers more conservatively — not ”tall grass and these weird flowers,” as he described it — but says that’s not what he got.

“We had a town yard sale in May, and a bunch of people came by and told me how much they liked what I had done out front. I had a couple clients in town who said the same, and so you know, I sort of gave up on anybody saying anything,” he says.

Where he did get pushback was from the town administrator, Steve Bolin.

In May, Ashford received a citation saying that his garden was in violation of a town ordinance. In a subsequent call with Bolin, Ashford says he was told the pollinator garden was the issue, as parts of it had grown above 12 inches.

Ashford says he offered Bolin a planting list of what was in his yard, and that he believed what he planted and how he planted it met the exception of a cultivated garden. Soon after, a court summons arrived. Ashford’s court date is Sept. 17, 2026.

Bolin did not respond to requests for comment from Realtor.com. Meanwhile, the town mayor, Jarred Spencer, told local newspaper The Post and Courier that enforcement of the ordinance is happening here because “people are complaining.”

The bones of a strong legal case

Ashford feels confident in representing himself in court and that he will avoid the fines the town wants to levy on him.

“I have my rights, and you’re not going to tell me I can’t do something that the law says I can do,” he says.

On one hand the ordinance seems clear. On the other hand, the exception properly muddles it.

“The town of Cowpens has the right to require homeowners to maintain their property. Someone can’t just stop mowing an overgrown lawn and call it a garden to skirt responsibility for it,” says Colin Ram, an lawyer in South Carolina. “The problem is that the reported facts fit the ordinance’s exception unusually well. Ashford apparently bought specific seed mixes, planted them in a defined area between two trees, and continues to mow the grass around it. Under the town’s own logic, that’s a hard thing to distinguish from a cultivated garden.”

Ram says the town could struggle to answer the question of, “If this isn’t a cultivated garden, what counts as one?” He also notes that the town may be prosecuting this case while missing the bigger picture.

“In 2025, the South Carolina General Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging local governments and private landowners to use native plants in landscaping to support pollinators. The resolution isn’t binding law and doesn’t decide this case, but it’s hard to miss the contrast between South Carolina politicians encouraging this kind of native planting while the Town of Cowpens is prosecuting a homeowner for it,” Ram says.

Another lawyer, Edward Susolik, president of Callahan & Blaine, a firm that handles real estate litigation cases, says that though Ashford’s dictionary definition is a “great sound bite,” the judge’s decision will likely come down to evidence of planting that is “intentional and maintained significantly.” But he also thinks that the most elegant solution won’t require a court ruling.

“These kinds of issues typically get resolved when the municipality establishes a clear standard and does not leave anything up to interpretation through vague terminology like ‘cultivated.’” says Susolik. “Cowpens could [create] a percentage requirement, a list of acceptable plants, or an advance registration system for planting native plants.”

Ashford is gearing up for his case. He says he plans to attend the hearing, bringing his credentials and even a proposal for a revised ordinance that would define pollinator gardens. He believes that he may be fined $US500 ($692) a day for his garden if he loses the case.

“I’m gonna go down swinging,” Ashford says. “If I have to cut it down, I gotta cut it down. If I have to come out here as a ruler and cut it 12 inches. I guess I’ll do that.”

While it’s possible the case is dropped or dismissed, Ashford says, he’s prepared for any outcome, as well as for what comes after it.

“If you think I’m just gonna take this, and become some like, ridiculously compliant citizen because I’m scared of the town of Cowpens, you are out of your mind,” he says. “And if I have to start embarrassing people in public, I’m gonna start embarrassing people in public.”