Lightning-strike teacher Charlie Sutton last night admitted: 'I should be dead'.

The 22-year-old was hit by a lightning bolt on the back of his head as he guided pupils from Wantage's King Alfred's School on a charity walk along the Ridgeway on Friday.

He was knocked unconscious but startled doctors by making a miraculous recovery with few ill-effects. And yesterday Mr Sutton said he believed his big head might have saved him.

Frightened students watched as Mr Sutton, a trainee teacher, collapsed, tried to get to his feet then suffered a fit.

He regained some consciousness on the way to the John Radcliffe Hospital - and amazingly his only only injuries were a slight burn to the back of his head, shock and temporary blindness.

Mr Sutton, who is on work experience, was helping to look after hundreds of pupils taking part in an eight-mile sponsored walk for school equipment.

He said: "Just before it happened I said to myself it would be pretty bad if one of these kids got hit, then I felt a bang and a big pain on the back of the head.

"It felt like I was being hit with 100 baseball bats all at once. It was unbearable. I thought someone had come out of nowhere and attacked me."

"Someone said they just saw this fork of lightning strike my head and I just fell to the floor.

"I don't recall anything after that. Apparently people were saying 'don't touch him' but someone did and they got a bit of a shock.

"The kids were absolutely petrified and when I came round all I could hear was screams and crying.

"It is the most surreal thing, I never thought in a million years I would be struck by lightning."

Speaking from his home in Sutton, near Eynsham, yesterday, the Gosford All Blacks rugby player joked that his big head had saved his life.

He said: "It must have been my big bonce. I've always had loads of stick from my friends for having a thick head and for not being able to feel things, but I knew it would come in useful one day! Last week I was playing in a rugby game, and the big opposition number six took a cheap shot at me on the back of the head. I was OK, but a few minutes later he had to go off with a broken hand.

"When I got to the hospital the doctors were amazed. They were saying 'it's a miracle you are alive'.

"I had an entry burn, but the doctors couldn't work out where the electric charge had exited.

"When I was in hospital I was more relieved than anything, but it has hit home now. I was incredibly lucky."