Posted on 05/27/2017 12:13:33 PM PDT by MtnClimber
If you’re hit by lightning, there’s a nine in ten chance you’ll survive. But what are the lasting effects of being exposed to hundreds of millions of volts? Charlotte Huff investigates.
Sometimes they’ll keep the clothing, the strips of shirt or trousers that weren’t cut away and discarded by the doctors and nurses. They’ll tell and retell their story at family gatherings and online, sharing pictures and news reports of survivals like their own or far bigger tragedies. The video of a tourist hit on a Brazilian beach or the Texan struck dead while out running. The 65 people killed during four stormy days in Bangladesh.
Only by piecing together the bystander reports, the singed clothing and the burnt skin can survivors start to construct their own picture of the possible trajectory of the electrical current, one that can approach 200 million volts and travel at one-third of the speed of light.
In this way, Jaime Santana’s family have stitched together some of what happened that Saturday afternoon in April 2016, through his injuries, burnt clothing and, most of all, his shredded broad-brimmed straw hat. “It looks like somebody threw a cannonball through it,” says Sydney Vail, a trauma surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, who helped care for Jaime after he arrived by ambulance, his heart having been shocked several times along the way as paramedics struggled to stabilise its rhythm.
Jaime had been horse-riding with his brother-in-law and two others in the mountains behind his brother-in-law’s home outside Phoenix, a frequent weekend pastime. Dark clouds had formed, heading in their direction, so the group had started back.
(Excerpt) Read more at mosaicscience.com ...
Lots of photos in article.
I was just mowing my yard (in central KY) and my wife made me come in because there was lightning striking all around us. We live on a knob surrounded by six acres of grass and four of trees.
Then I open up the internet to see this thread...
When I was 8 me and my dad were standing in our barn when he was struck by lightning. I was thrown across the barn but my dad was killed. He had polio so he always wore a metal brace on his leg.
Good thing you did not get hit. It looks like it ruins your clothes.
My best guess is that you’d probably not remember it much.
We had a lightning strike in our yard the night before last. It was frightening.
Eee-lect-risity is nothing to fool with. Ben Franklin not excepted....
Bummer...
Just note that you come from a long line of survivors....
There is a story out there about a guy who became a musical genius after being struck. He became an opera singer.
My kids and I arrived at the train station in Florence, Italy and were walking to our hotel. Lightning hit the building right across from us...what a flash and instantaneous thunderous BOOM. Frightening, indeed.
That looks like it would hurt.
“If you’re hit by lightning, there’s a nine in ten chance you’ll survive.”
I’d rather win the lottery. But thats just me.
Less serious, when I managed a silver plating shop in Jax, the owner was talking to the employees- me and the flunky, and was holding on to two metal vats across an aisle from each other. The weather was seriously inclement right then and I didn't hear a strike, just saw a flash. Phil hoisted himself on his hands pm the vats, his legs made bicycly motions rapidly for a second, a high pitched t-t-t-t-t-noise emanated from his mouth and he dropped to the floor. He rolled over and looked around and said,"what the hell was that!?" He got up and we all took stock. His hair was singed and the digital watch on his wrist looked like it had been sandblasted and the buckle left a burn on his wrist. Other than that and a headache he seemed none the worse for it.
Holy cow. Thank goodness no one was hurt.
Many years ago, when I was about 8 years old, I was standing in the gathering room of a camp in the Adirondacks one evening when a lightning bolt hit the cabin and a small part of it shot through the open window and hit me on the left shoulder. It went through my upper body, and out my right hand into a wall outlet, where it blew a fuse.
I felt a very distinct shock, and saw the flash go by me, but I wasn’t hurt. Just very scared.
We went over and carefully shut the window. No real harm, but I’ll never forget it.
Distant thunder and lightning are terrifying and this article explains why we all have an instinctual fear. So do dogs- and I am sure - other animals.
Always check the weather and if possible, avoid going outside during thunder storms. Try not to scare the kids, but be sure they know to move inside when they hear thunder.
I didn’t hear any noise either just saw a flash that was the brightest light I ever saw. It had just started raining also, overcast but hadn’t heard or seen any thunder or lightning before it hit. I remember running to the house to tell my family that my dad was dead but I don’t remember ever even seeing him after the flash.
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