
How to Survive a Lightning Strike (2014) - gringoDan
https://www.outsideonline.com/1925996/body-electric
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sethammons
This reads like modern day food recipe sites. While the stories are great, I'm
not sure it ever really tells us how to survive a lightning strike. The
closest were the following two passages:

After ~10k characters:

> The best advice for people who find themselves outside during a lightning
> storm is simply to get inside, either a home or a vehicle. Yet even
> buildings aren’t completely impervious to lightning strikes. You’ll want to
> stay off the telephone, out of the shower, and away from sinks. Lightning
> can pass through landlines, plumbing—metal pipes and faucets—and all manner
> of electrical wiring.

And after another ~10k characters:

> The evidence suggests that lightning injuries are, for the most part,
> injuries to the brain, the nervous system, and the muscles. Lightning can
> ravage or kill cells, but it can also leave a trail of much subtler damage.
> Cooper and other researchers have speculated that chronic issues are the
> result of lightning scrambling each individual survivor’s unique internal
> circuitry

I think it was just a poor choice of a title.

~~~
VHRanger
Rather it's a great choice of a title given the editors' incentives.

It's highbrow clickbait title with decent content

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segfaultbuserr
> _Lightning also dramatically altered his personality. “It made me a mean,
> ornery son of a bitch. I’m short-tempered. Nothing is fun anymore. I am just
> not the same person my wife married”_

Damages to the nerve system and the brain. I guess this process is similar to
stressing a piece of analog electronics above its absolute maximum ratings,
like overheat, overvoltage, or ESD. The device may still work to an extent,
but performance is degraded, and its parameters have been permanently altered.

------
mauvehaus
As somebody who has not been struck, but been damn close to a strike twice,
I'd like to note that the folk wisdom that your hair stands up (like when you
get goosebumps, I guess? Not like an Einstein picture?) before a strike and
gives you some kind of warning is utterly false. What you're supposed to do
when so warned is is unclear, but nevermind that.

How close is damn close?

This summer I was doing some work on a house when a storm rolled in. Went
inside and waited out some heavy wind, lightning and rain. 10 minutes after
the rain let up, the guy I was looking at and I looked at each other, shrugged
our shoulders and figured we'd get back to work. I went out to the patio and
was pulling the tarp off the tablesaw when lightning struck. I reflexively
count after a strike (I spend a lot of time in the woods), and the interval
between the lightning and the thunder was long enough to register a lightning
strike, but not to begin counting.

Needless to say, we went back inside, packed up our stuff there, and started
loading the truck. As we were doing so, a fire truck came by inquiring where
we might find a nearby address. Knowing that address and the address of the
house we were working on let me determine that we were about 80m away from the
strike using Google maps.

That's the second closest I've been. The closest was on the Appalachian Trail
in 2010. I ducked into a shelter in the Shenandoahs to wait out a storm. The
rain tapered off and stopped, and I figured I'd shove on for a few more miles
before calling it a day (around 3:00 PM). As I was about to leave the shelter,
lightning struck close enough that the lightning and thunder registered in my
brain essentially simultaneously. Best estimate based on this summer's
experience? 30m, maybe less?

In neither case did my hair stand up. If you need to be closer to the location
of the impending strike to observe the phenomenon, I reckon you're pretty well
boned.

If you're looking to not get struck by lightning in the first place, which
seems advisable based on TFA, I'd suggest that the notion you're going to have
some kind of warning before a strike is nonsense.

I would similarly note that just because it seems like the storm has passed
doesn't mean it has. In high school marching band, the rule was that a
football game couldn't resume until an hour after the last lightning. It
seemed ridiculous at the time. Now it seems well-founded.

~~~
wDcBKgt66V8WDs
> been damn close ... 30m

> that your hair stands up ... is utterly false

Please stop, 30m is not close. This is advice given in wilderness first aid
training for _possible_ warning of _being hit_ not a _30m_ miss.

I'm going to trust them over you.

*edit: should also say that in my WFA they said you may or may not feel it, and if you do feel it you may or may not have enough time to react to it. The only reaction you really have is "lightning position" which is a tight ball of a crouch. Lying down completely is thought to be more dangerous, so don't go diving.

Also I've seen lightning about 30m off as well, it struck the mouth of a
wooded trail I was considering exiting, my eyes were focused on the exact spot
it struck. Hesitation probably saved me, though it was blinding and deafening.
Thunder that close is really something else, absolutely the most violent sound
I've heard in person.

~~~
mauvehaus
I've heard the same advice about crouching, but have never been in a position
where I've tried it. When canoeing, the advice I've heard is get to shore and
crouch on your PFD for additional insulation.

For sake of comparison, The article says a lightning strike releases about 500
MJ of energy. Wikipedia says a "standard" stick of dynamite contains about 1
MJ of energy[0]. In my estimation standing 30m from the (very rough)
equivalent 500 sticks of dynamite going off counts as damn close.

I realize this is a very rough comparison, but I'd guess that it's surely
within an order of magnitude or two for comparison purposes. Joules are
joules, but how they're released might be wildly different, we're way outside
the realm of my expertise. I wouldn't want to be 30m from 50 sticks of
dynamite going off, or even 5.

I don't know how the sound would compare between dynamite, but I agree with
your observation that a lightning strike at 30m is a hell of a noise.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form)

~~~
wDcBKgt66V8WDs
Yeah I mean 30m is close from the perspective of something that ridiculous
happening, but my point is the phenomenon of electrons moving to the point
that you can actually sense it happening is localized to path of the lightning
strike. Hence 30m is not close.

------
Exquisites
The best way to survive, of course, is to avoid a lightning strike.

Oh, and remember that rubber tires and rubber-soled shoes provide virtually no
protection from lightning. In fact, many victims of lightning strikes are
farmers in open fields riding tractors with rubber tires.

~~~
tyingq
And often metal farming implements dragging the ground, and a vehicle that
sometimes makes your head the highest thing from the ground. Maybe not the
best high level evidence that tires on a car don't help.

~~~
qes
The high level evidence is that lighting can travel thousands of feet through
air. An inch or two of rubber is nothing.

It's the metal cage of the car that provides lighting a more conductive path
around instead of through you.

~~~
tyingq
Fine, but sitting on a metal seat/floorboards propped up as the highest point
on a grounded big metal object is basically a human lightning rod. Comparing
that to a car isn't compelling.

That's different than laying in a ditch or sitting in a car. At least in the
car, the body is higher off the ground, and a lower resistance path than you.
Perhaps a convertible, open top, bare metal floor with a flat tire might be
comparable.

------
Simulacra
Interesting, but it appears the first step is to avoid getting struck by
lightning in the first place.

~~~
stronglikedan
You can't survive a lightning strike unless you get struck by lightning.

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asdfman123
What's your actual odds of being struck if you wander out into an active
thunderstorm and decide to play in the rain for an hour?

Is it actually more dangerous than driving a car for that same amount of time?

~~~
dreamcompiler
Getting struck while inside a car is much less dangerous. The metal of the car
creates a poor but still useful Faraday cage around you, which means the bulk
of the current does not pass through your body [0].

[0] [https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-
safe...](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-safe-place-
during/17283636)

------
Jeff_Brown
Crouch on your toes, put your hands over your ears. Being as low as possible,
and keeping only your toes on the ground rather than the rest of your feet,
makes your body a less useful (hence less likely) conduit to the ground.

If lightning's about to strike you, you can feel a brief warning tingle.

~~~
Doxin
Keep your feet together as well to make sure the voltage difference between
your feet is as low as possible in case the strike is nearby but not a direct
hit.

------
neom
My boss after high school got struck by lightning while golfing, when he came
back to work he had scars all over his body where the metal jewelry had melted
and fused into his skin.

------
objektif
How does the striking mechanism work? Doesnt the current go through the
tallest object around or not nevessarily?

~~~
woeirua
No, this is a common misconception. Consider the difference in electrical
potential between two trees that are 35 feet tall, and one that's 20 feet
tall. Is there a difference? Yes, but it's not a big one, and when you
consider the overall path length from the cloud to ground you're talking about
a miniscule difference.

Additionally, there are other confounding variables. Taller trees are
typically older, and have larger root systems. Maybe they're better grounded,
relative to younger trees, and so they are better pathways. We just don't know
enough yet to say for certain why lightning strikes where it does.

The only thing I will say, is that if you're outside and have nowhere to go,
the best place is to be in a dense forest, but not close to any particular
trees. The odds of you being directly struck in a forest are incredibly small.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
> The only thing I will say, is that if you're outside and have nowhere to go,
> the best place is to be in a dense forest, but not close to any particular
> trees.

Your phrasing made me smile, because I could imagine Terry Pratchet writing
the same words. It would be some joke about how you needed to stand near some
tree, but no _particular_ tree.

Golly I wish he were still writing.

------
BrandonMarc
Needs a better title:

How to survive the aftermath of a lightning strike

~~~
mhb
Why It's Bad to be Struck by Lightning

