Have you ever been struck by lightning?

[Bard2dbone]

I've never been struck. But I've worked on people who were. And I've had strikes VERY near to me. Once, as a teenager, while driving in a very slight, misty rain, a bolt of lightning struck a yield sign about twelve feet from my car. I swerved pretty badly.

For a pretty good impression of my reaction, watch the scene in the Grinch where Jim Carrey freaks out for the better part of a minute, then gets himself back under control and says "Whoa. I almost lost my cool, there." I wasn't quite as bad as Jim, but I was pretty close.

 

[Jimbo]

no. not even any close counters for me. lightning does fascinate me though.

No, but I've been rocked like a hurricane.

brad cook

awesome.

-jimbo

 

[Kaboom]

You have little rubber thingys on the bottom of your crutches right? Wouldn't it be like sitting in a car?

nope not really. The reason you are safe in a car is because faraday's laws state that the charge will concentrate where the charges are furthest apart from each other, and that is on the ouside of any overall convex object, like a car (IF the outside's metallic).

 

[eric234]

one came so close to me that it made my hair stand on end but that was all that happened by the way i had the same storm you had and that was a crapload of lightning coming out of that thing

 

[MJ5150]

Was it the best game of your life, and were you skipping church?

Hehehe.

I was having an OK day on the course, nothing spectacular. I was upset that we did not finish the round. It was our last day in Utah. That's what I get for waiting till the last minute to play the course. I'll know better next time.

-Mike

 

[Arikash]

I must've been about 10 years old, we were upstairs watching tv, and hear this big crash, look outside and sure enough, a half a tree was lying in our yard. Another wierd thing that resulted of that was we had this light dimmer thingy, it was just an oval on the wall, and went by touch. That wouldn't work after that storm, kinda sucked.

 

[KSDbass]

I think so, i dont really know. I was at boy scouts once, and it was a really bad storm, so i was in my tent look for a flashlight, and all of a sudden i woke up on the groun, about 10 minutes later

 

[Chunk-O-Funk]

I have not but came real close, and this happened on a gig.

We (the band) had a privet party to play, a graduation party. As we were driving to the house we could see the storm clouds roll in so we decided not to set up right away. This gig was outside of course. The owner had some tents set up for the dining area where we all stayed to wait out the storm. Not the brightest idea, these were the type of tents with no sides you would rent for such a functions as this, lots of metal polls to hang onto. Well the rain started coming down pretty good and there was lots of lightning. One bolt of lightning must have hit the ground not to far from us, you could hear it travel through the saturated ground. It sounded like a lot of small firecrackers going off. One guy fell right out of his chair, he just landed on the ground and was unconscious for a couple of minutes and was very dazed when he came to. This guy was standing just a few feet from me. There was some girls there who were wearing sandals said they could feel a tingly feeling in their feet. Everyone else was fine, just this one guy out of I don't know how many people. I could have leaned over and touched him from where I was standing and I did not feel a thing. when the paramedics came he was feeling better, they check him out, took an EGK and he must have been okay because they let him stay. After everyone calmed down, and the rain cleared we got started. Talk about a tough act to follow.

 

[The Golden Boy]

If you're talking about the kind of lightning that hit Michael Corleone when he was in Sicily... yeah.

 

[DigMe]

We (the band) had a privet party to play,

Was that some kind of Harry Potter party?

brad cook

 

[embellisher]

I have never been struck, but I have had two close encounters with lightning.

The first happened when I was 4 years old. It was storming, so my sister and I could not play outside. Mom let us play in the garage, where she had a load of clothes in the dryer. We were playing, and heard a loud noise, and then saw lightning come through the wall and strike the dryer! Scared the crap out of us, almost literally. Sparks went everywhere, and there were briefly flames all over the outside of the dryer. It tripped the breaker, but amazingly, didn't damage anything. I have avoided garages during storms ever since.

The second time, my oldies band (Vinny and the Jets) was playing a concert at a local lake. We were playing on a rented stage that was basically a trailer with an large roll out awning. It started raining while we were playing Born to be wild. Right at the climax of the guitar solo, lightning struck a transformer about 50 yards from the stage. We lost power, and at that point the heavens opened and it proceeded to rain harder than I have ever seen in my life, along with 50+ mph winds. We got soaked, and so did our equipment. By the time we loaded up and got out of there, water was standing 2 feet deep on the parking lot and the roads.

That was one of those 'WOW'! Band moments that will never be topped. The crowd went absolutely nuts when the lightning struck during the guitar solo. They bravely stood in the sudden downpour and cheered us for 5 minutes. You really had to be there.

 

[AaronS]

As a long time mountaineer I have luckily missed out on being hit by lightning, however, several of my friends have had the experience. One of the guys I ski patrolled with was killed by lightning on Molas Divide in the San Juans while mountain biking. Another friend's wife was struck while descending from Long's Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. He was able to revive her with CPR. Another friend was hit while guiding a climber on Irene's Arete in Grand Teton National Park. It was 1968 and pitons were still being used. He had a full sling of about 30 pounds of steel. They were about 3/4 of the up the 1,000 foot vertical face when he was hit. He said it picked him up by the boots and lowered him just like an elevator to a small ledge about 30 feet down. He said he s**t his pants. I said I would have also.

The strangest was a friend who was leading a climb on Mt. Sneffels in the San Juans. On the way down from the summit there was a ground strike about 10 feet from the group. They were shook up, but continued briskly down the mountain. About a minute later there was a second strike again about 10 feet away. They threw away their ice axes and started running down. About 30 seconds later there was a 3rd strike about 10 feet away. This time they threw down their packs and ran as fast as they could. At 1500 feet above timberline we have no idea why they weren't hit. Just their lucky day I guess, but they weren't sticking around for a fourth attempt and they didn't go back for their packs until several hours later when the storm was long gone.

About 15 years ago, I was co-leading a climb on Mt Meeker in Rocky Mountian National Park when a storm started developing in the west. About 10:30 I said to my co-leader that I thought we ought to consider descending. He said he thought we would get to the summit before anything serious developed. So we kept going. About 11:00 I said the same thing and he replied the same. About 11:30 I said I thought we should take a vote. The vote was to continue. We summited about noon and looked down. The storm had slipped around through the saddle between Mt. Meeker and Longs Peak. The lightning was now below us, blocking our descent and we were stuck on the summit. So much for democracy.

 

[Floating teetH]

I was hiking w/ a group in new mexico and pal who now works for the secret service was about ten feet from a nasty shock......I've avoided them myself.

 

[Bard2dbone]

The strangest was a friend who was leading a climb on Mt. Sneffels in the San Juans. On the way down from the summit there was a ground strike about 10 feet from the group. They were shook up, but continued briskly down the mountain. About a minute later there was a second strike again about 10 feet away. They threw away their ice axes and started running down. About 30 seconds later there was a 3rd strike about 10 feet away. This time they threw down their packs and ran as fast as they could. At 1500 feet above timberline we have no idea why they weren't hit. Just their lucky day I guess, but they weren't sticking around for a fourth attempt and they didn't go back for their packs until several hours later when the storm was long gone.

I am picturing God saying "Hmmm. It looks like the sights are off on this thing by about mmmmm ten feet or so. I guess I'll have to cheat it over to the left a litttle bit."

 

[Nick man]

Ive had a few close strikes, but Ive never been hit.

Insane storms and lightning are part of life here in FL.

Just a day or two ago there was a weird cloud over NW Miami that had intensely bright flashes of lightning every few seconds that didnt descend, but just hung up there instead, and not throughout a wide area, but just a small section of the storm.

 

[Vorago]

Well, a kid I knew got struck by lightening because he went fishing in a storm with a fibreglass fishing line. The kid that was standing next to him got hit as well, and her gold chain was melted into her skin!

You must be extremely stupid imo to go out fishing in a storm with a fibreglass fishing line.

Oh, and another time lightening struck the toilets at the campingplace, 300ft from our tent. Luckily the gasstank didn't explode.