Posted on 07/03/2023 4:57:23 PM PDT by bluescape
Does anyone know if the myth of lightning striking the ground causing a shock to someone say in the bathtub or washing in the sink is true?
Supposedly it could strike the metal pipes underground and travel up the line to connect with the bathtub you're in.
I've found myself waiting for a storm to pass just in case, but it might be hogwash. On the other hand I know someone who saw a person struck by lightning and it killed the crap out of them. I'd hate to learn the truth of this from experience.
Water has a fairly high electrical resistance. You are at risk only when there there is a conductive path through you, end to end. Standing in a puddle isn’t a problem unless the current has a connection to somewhere else on your body. A strike on the head would “do it”.
Yeah, but that rapid oxidization can be pretty hot.
Pipes, no pipes, none of it matters. If you are in the discharge path, you will receive some of the current. Maybe you get luck, maybe you don't.
A close hit by lightning causes induced currents in any conductor due to the intense magnetic pulse associated with lightning's current surge, which is an obscene amount of current. A near strike can cause deadly side affects.
Good point. I’m too old-fashioned.
A near strike will most certainly induce an electric current by virtue of the magnetic pulse. PVC pipe does not affect the magnetic field.
So many people just don’t understand that lightning induces currents in surrounding objects with its gargantuan magnetic pulse.
Chi Chi Rodriguez: “If there is a lightning storm, I go to the highest point of the course and hold up a 1 Iron. Because even God can’t hit a 1 Iron properly.”
There was a bad accident that happened in my neck of the woods, not because of lightning though.
Two experienced linemen who worked for the electric utility traced a line fault into a stretch that went (on poles) through a swamp. It isn't known exactly what happened, but both were killed. The more senior one had decades on the job, and they were well-equipped. They were standing in water.
If you in that path, you will explode.
The electricity won’t even go in the water is my point. It’s going to go from teh pipe down into the ground. You’d have to stop that path and make it go through your body.
They were either hit by “streamers” or a current induced by the magnetic pulse.
Lightning can destroy something like a stereo system even if you unplug it from the wall. The magnetic pulse can build up a large voltage in the speaker coils, wreaking havoc from an unexpected direction.
My grandmother (born about 1885) was in mortal fear of anyone being in the bath or shower during a thunderstorm, and God forbid we touch the telephone. I suspect that in the early days of indoor plumbing, especially in rural areas, that water pipes were made of ductile iron, leading from galvanized steel water tanks atop windmill towers (i.e., lightning bait), without adequate grounding. It wouldn’t take but a couple of en bath electrocutions, however rare, to make it a common belief, which hung around long after safe grounding became the norm. Same situation with early telephones, with bare wires mounted on poles leading right into the house and device.
If you in that path, you will explode.
++++++++++++++++
Some survive. I know (personally) a guy that got hit twice. Outdoors while fishing. He’s fine.
Here is a true story. back in the early 80’s I was at my in laws house taking a shower during a storm. There was a big crash that shook the house. Nothing happened to me. I finished my shower and got dressed. The next day I was under the house repairing a small leak in the water line. It seems that lightning had struck somewhere close to the house and traveled through the pipe until it got to where two pipes crossed close together. It arced and burned a small hole in one of the pipes. Did that arc save my life. Don’t know, but I’m still here and don’t shower during storms.
It depends of the current that goes through your nervous system. A lot of the charge will ride around the outside of your body. A lot of times, they don’t actually get hit with the lightning bolt. They get an induced current from the magnetic pulse of a near strike. People aren’t good magnetic pathways, so the current is low.
we might say that when the current rises both electricity and republicans go to ground.
The idea of having lightning rods is that they bleed off the electrons before they can build up enough to make lightning.
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