A man hiking 9,000ft up in the Sierra Nevada mountain range has told how he was struck by a lightning bolt that blasted away his clothes, burned a hole in one of his shoes and left him with severe burns.

Austrian Mathias Steinhuber was left with an entry wound on his head and an exit wound on his foot after being struck while taking a photo on an exposed peak near Donner Summit, on the Pacific Crest Trail in northern California.

The 31-year-old said: "It was like in a dream. I woke up. I had blood everywhere, my clothes were ripped apart. At some distance I heard my girlfriend scream my name. My first conclusion was that I probably fell down the mountain."

A helicopter crew rescued him and he is being treated in a specialist burns unit.