Posted on 09/23/2025 9:10:30 AM PDT by Red Badger
“Just curious. How do they know it was a lightning strike and not other dangers people face in the wild”?
Because there were no signs of a violent attack. The autopsy showed internal organ damage consistent with what lightning does.
You’re welcome. I didn’t mind reading the story.
My dad had never done any work with concrete, but he was unintimidated by any task, and he just purchased a book on how to do it and went out and bought an completely rust-encased "one-lunger" cement mixer-and did it. My brothers and I were enlisted to work on it. So, we had already poured the concrete for the four foot wide walkway all the way around the 40x20 foot pool, and it was done, so we began the patio which was probably 25x20 feet, had the forms laid and had already poured a few the day before. On the day we went out to do a few more squares in the form, we had just mixed and began the process of getting the concrete in a wheel barrow and pouring it into the form.
A thunderstorm came in, and we had already poured one square, so when the rain began to come down hard, we were trying desperately to smooth it out so we could cover it with a tarp, and BAM!
A lightning bolt hit the swimming pool and I happened to be looking at it when it happened, and I swear the entire pool flashed, but...that may just have been my eyes. (I did not even know lightning would hit water...but...I wasn't that versed on it.) It probably hit about 20 feet away.
Well. I can tell you, my brothers and I must have looked like we were shot out of a cannon, dropping everything and running in the house.
That was fifty years ago, and to this day, all that concrete we laid looks great, no cracks or spalling...except for that one square. It sticks out because all the other areas on that concrete patio look perfect, but that one has a grainy surface to it. I think that is damn good, living in New England, which is not friendly to concrete given the weather!
What frightened me was that I could FEEL the electricity! I could feel it in my body (not as a 'shock' but...in a way I cannot explain) and oddly, I could feel it in my teeth and also got an odd metallic taste in my mouth. I very nearly shat myself, and ran directly into the building I was running to.
It was pouring rain torrentially all day, and we made a mistake and took a fork of the trail and ended up going around the wrong side of the mountain, which forced us to backtrack. We ended up trudging around in the pouring rain for eight hours before we got to the top. The rain was so heavy that the trail going up the mountain was a nearly knee deep white water rapid. We tried to walk on the sides, but in the end, eventually gave up and just trudged through the water.
By the end of the day, I was cold, wet (even with full rain gear) and exhausted. But we were getting closer to our destination, and had stopped to take a breather, when BOOOOOOOOM! A lighting bolt hit somewhere nearby, close enough there was no delay, and being at that elevation, it sounded like we were right in the cloud that lightning bold had emanated from! I remember being exhausted, and reflexively bear-hugging a birch tree in terror with water streaming down my face, then instantly releasing it (realizing how dangerous that was) and was filled with new energy to get to the summit which was less than a half hour away!
Fortunately, nobody was in the abandoned Ranger Shack, and water was pouring through the overhead in so many places that there was one relatively dry spot in one corner, so that was where we set up for the night. We fried pieces of steak over a backpack stove, and ate it with rice pilaf. To this day, all three of us agree that was one of the most satisfying meals we had ever eaten!
What a show.
I am from New England, where the terrain rarely affords the ability to see a large oncoming storm. Generally, you only see a very limited part of the storm. But in Oshkosh, as we watched that storm come in, we could see it from horizon to horizon. For those of you in other parts of the country, this may be old hat, but for me, being from New England, I was not accustomed to seeing it.
I watched in awe as the storm approached, and at any given time, I saw four or five simultaneous lighting strikes interspersed with individual strikes, so it was continuous. As I said, if you lived in the plains or Kansas, this is commonplace and not as big of a deal, but I had never seen anything like it, and it was intimidating.
“I fortunately escaped without a wound, tho’ the right Wing where I stood was exposed to & received all the Enemy’s fire and was the part where the man was killed & the rest wounded. I can with truth assure you, I heard Bulletts whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.”
King George III, after reading this was said to have commented:
“He would not say so, if he had been used to hear many.”
If they did not have camping gear, the assumption is they were on a day trip.
If they did have camping gear, the assumption is they would not succumb easily to the summer/early fall elements, even at 7900 feet.
Really? So do you believe the Coroner is lying? Ignorant?
Who says it was written by people? Innumeracy is a possible tip that it was written by AI.
All basic generative AI does is predict (generate) the next word based on the sequence of words it saw in the prompt and the sequence already generated, with some noise injected to make it less prone to predictable loopy word salad. AIs are innumerate — leads to absurd results like this.
I’m so distracted by the terrible job of editing, I can’t even get to the facts of the story! Anyone who believes humans are evolving upward is crazy.
In Florida, and I suspect other places as well, lightning can strike on a perfectly clear and sunny day.
A few years back a man was killed when struck by lightning in MIAMI, IIRC, while working on a tower on a clear day..........
“android lightning”
____________________
So my Samsung phone will eloctrocute me???!!! :^O [Yeah, I know it was some sort of auto edit function.:^) ]
Wow, remind me to never venture out with you! That’s enough lightning adventures for a lifetime.
I was camping in the Wind River Range around late 1975 with a girlfriend above a gorgeous lake. Rounded exposed granite was all around our campsite high above the lake. A vicious storm rolled in and I’ve never seen such a lightning storm show as I saw that day. The sky was dark, almost black, with the heavy rain clouds, but the rain was falling elsewhere, so we had a clear view of the exposed granite on the other side of the lake. Those granite hills were taking a beating from many lightning strikes. It was the most incredible sight, but I really thought we were done for and there was no shelter we could seek anywhere.
The storm blew through pretty quickly the way they do in the western mountains and clear skies followed shortly thereafter. We fortunately never had a lightning strike near us. Living through danger like that is quite energizing. It was the most intense lightning display I’ve ever seen and that was about 50 years ago!
Why would autocorrect change “and”? Weird.
If you’re in the woods, trees may be everywhere.
Strange. I have seen multiple cases of lightning hitting trees and almost always there is evidence such as tree roots near the surface of the soil literally exploding and disturbing the soil covering them.
Pine trees will explode..................
Fat lighter?
The pine sap immediately boils to a gas and is ignited by the electrical sparks. I have seen the whole side of a huge pine tree blown out. The tree dies of course............
Elk has connections Mother natures makes thunder.
Coroner: Missing hunters were killed after being struck by lightning
In 1980 I was on a Forest Service Fire engine crew and responded to a lighting strike victim at Lake Hemet CA, he was pretty fried , still smoking when we got there. He was leaning against a tree fishing according to witnesses.
First I have heard of a remote lighting electrocution with no signs of burns but is possible.
IMO it should be ruled unknown cause. To me "possibly" is not conclusive. For all we know they could have been lost and wandering trying to fight off the effects of hypothermia and finally passed out from a standing position, perhaps one carrying the other. A lot of young atheletes have been suddenly dying, dropping dead mysteriously lately
Coroner has abdolutely no clue....but a guess with no proof.
Sign the form! Let’s get paid.
Math is hard - Barbie
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