Posted on 07/13/2010 2:31:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A fifth-grade Prosper math teacher whose truck was struck by lightning this weekend said he's going to turn it into a lesson plan.
The shock tore up a stretch of road along the Dallas North Tollway near U.S. 380.
“We’re going to do the odds on this," said Russell Babb. "I got to figure out with the kids, what the odds are of your teacher getting struck by lightning."
Babb, who was driving to meet his brother for lunch, said it sounded like a bomb. Concrete flew everywhere, he said.
“It chopped up the cement like a sledgehammer,” he said. The next thing he knew, a woman was knocking on the window of his Ford pickup truck.
“She said, 'I thought you were dead,' and I said, 'No, I’m still alive,'” Babb said.
Babb said he believes the lightning bolt traveled in three directions through the cab of his truck, zapping the engine, but leaving him and his F-150 unscathed. “I’m just wondering how anybody survives," he said. "Looking at the cement, I’m wondering how anyone survives.”
According to the National Lightning Safety Institute, about 60 people are killed by lightning every year. Only about 10 percent of people who are struck by lightning are killed, according to the National Weather Service. Babb said he went to church Sunday.
“And I was on time,” he joked.
Video at site.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to get hit by lighting, but it’s never happened.
He’s very lucky. Odds mean squat. Most lightening strike victims are very dead crispy critters.
What are the odds?
Inside a vehicle is the safest place to be. The electricity travels through the metal body to the ground.
I’m assuming the pavement popped because underlying water turned instantly to steam.
They also calculate 1/6520 chance of you getting struck. Not sure how accurate that is, i am guessing it would be higher.
He came out OK because his truck was a Farraday cage, directing the bolt around him into the ground. Injuries and fatalities from lightning strikes to vehicles are usually the result of accidents that are caused by the driver being momentarily blinded and/or distracted and losing control.
Step right over here by my bank of capacitors..........
I’m sure you’re kidding, but you really don’t want to get hit by lightning.
In the summer of 1968, a friend and I were walking along a path that ran parallel with an 8 foot tall galvanized wire fence. The path was about 6 foot away from the fence. My friend was closest to the fence, and I was the furthest. We could see a huge black cloud coming, and we knew we were going to get soaked. We didn’t care, it was really hot and the rain was welcome.
I remember the feeling of a charge of static as if you were rubbing your hair with a balloon. I looked at my friend and his hair was standing on end. The next thing I remember was a blinding flash, and almost immediatley a blast of thunder like I’ve never heard.
My friend was on the ground crying and uttering complete gibberish as if the neurons in his brain had lost connection. He peed in his pants and was rolling on the ground hysterically, crying and alternatley babbling a completly incoherant language.
I didn’t know what to do except hold onto him and try and calm him, he was scaring the living crap out of me.
Finally, after about 15 minutes, his senses started to return to him, and he soon recovered completley after about a half hour.
He doesn’t remember anything from between the time we felt the first drops of rain until the time he could speak intelligble language again.
I hate to think of what would have happened if we were just a few feet closer.
The next day we went back to the spot to see if there was any traces of the lightning strike. About 200 feet of fence was turned to rust.
“Inside a vehicle is the safest place to be. The electricity travels through the metal body to the ground.”
Modern vehicles, that’s true. Actually, vehicles are seldom struck, because lightning seeks ground, and the tires pretty much insulate vehicles unless they are in standing water. But you are right, if they are struck, they act like a Faraday cage.
Around 1910 a grand uncle of mine was on his way to a barn on a wagon to get out of a sudden storm. Unfortunately, he, the horse, and the wagon were struck by lighning. He was shocked, but lived, and I still have the pocket watch with the hole the lightning burned in it. Killed the horse, destroyed the wagon, but my uncle went on to live to 107.
Hank
Did he see a doctor?
Theoretically, that's true.
On the other hand, we're talking about 50 million volts trying to be insulated from the earth by four contact points of rubber about four inches square each.
That's over three million volts for every square inch of insulation.
So I think you can pretty much count on some insulation failure under such conditions...
That photo is not of lightening. Every line of light has the same shape — it is some sort of long exposure, or it is photoshopped.
The brightest light is a street light in the far background, and the bright light below that is its reflection off the wet pavement. The other lights are the running lights of the car.
No lightning.
Nah.
We were 2 macho dudes to young and stupid to see a doctor, and besides we were both somewhat like celebrities for a couple of days with the rest of the kids in our neighborhood, except for Bob my friend, when I let it slip that he peed in his pants and was crying like an infant.
We’ve had many laughs since then, but it was a terrifying event that I’ll never forget.
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