Posted on 08/06/2010 12:29:04 PM PDT by JoeProBono
DENVER, - A man who was struck by lightning while hiking the highest summit in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park said he is eager to return.
Brandon Baker, 31, of Princeton, Minn., said he was atop the 14,259-foot summit of Longs Peak when a storm rolled in Wednesday and he lost consciousness shortly after spotting lightning bolts, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Friday.
"The next thing I knew, I woke up the next morning," Baker said.
Baker said he woke up feeling sore and was met on the way down by a camper who came to find him when he did not return the previous evening. The camper pointed out a large wound on the back of Baker's head and emergency crews informed him he had been hit by lightning.
"I have a mark on each foot, a mark on each elbow, (and) I have a mark on my left shoulder blade," said Baker. "It looks like I was hit by one blast."
The hiker said medical staff at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver told him he was lucky to be alive. They said he might be released as early as Sunday.
Baker said he is eager to return to hiking.
"I would go right back up there tomorrow if my legs didn't feel bad," he said. "It's amazing once you get up there. You just don't understand until you get to the top of a 14,000-foot peak."
Baker has now taken the nickename Flash.
But his girlfriend calls him Sparky.
Mr G climbed to the top of Grand Teton. They did it in 2 days, camping overnight at a saddle, so they could start the hard ascent at 3 am. They wanted to be at the top and back down by noon to avoid any possibility of storms.
Mr G’s brother saw someone killed by lightning on a mountain.
LOL - beat me to it.
I'm presently sitting in the same place where, two years ago, lightning struck a tree just 20 feet away. A thunderstorm had passed through ½-hour earlier. The tree it struck was a paper birch tree.
How I found the tree it struck was easy: The bolt had sliced through one side of the birch, which sent thin "ringlets" of paper birch everywhere. Most "ringlets" hung in the branches of other treesfor 50-feet aroundnever having reached the soil.
A plumber told me what he had found in a summer cabin near here. Lightning had un-soldered every copper fitting in the house's plumbing while fully charged with water. It is almost impossible to un-solder a copper pipe joint with a torch if there is water in it.
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