
I was struck by lightning yesterday—and boy am I sore - kryptiskt
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/i-was-struck-by-lightning-yesterday-and-boy-am-i-sore/
======
niels_olson
If someone knows this guy, please tell him to consult a physician. Sounds like
he may be experiencing rhabdomyolysis. When massive muscle contractions occur
involuntarily, the fibers tend to break down and those proteins spill into the
blood. This spillage may not peak for 12-36 hours. This can clog the kidneys
and lead to acute kidney failure, which can then lead to acute heart failure,
all told potentially 48 hours out. HN user arn is a nephrologist, he could
comment more intelligently.

If anything, he should make sure he's on somebody's radar.

Edit, source: I'm a physician.

~~~
dnautics
isn't there also a condition where electicical voltage-lysed cells spill out
their contents and trigger cascading apoptosis, leading to death, but only
after a few days? I don't know if there's a prophylaxis for this, but if there
is, it might seem prudent.

~~~
niels_olson
Rhabdo is probably what you're thinking of. As a minor point, traumatic cell
death is generally considered necrotic, not apoptotic. Apoptosis is
_programmed_ cell death.

~~~
dnautics
Yeah I was under the impression that the initial trauma released specific
factors into the blood that trigger apoptosis away from the trauma site... But
I guess rhabdo is what I was thinking of.

------
kposehn
I've been nearly struck several times. I love lightning, and apparently it
loves me right back. And wants to touch me.

What I have learned is this:

1\. You will almost never get warning before lightning strikes. Only once did
I get the hair-on-end. Every other time, no warning whatsoever before
discharge. However, as is obvious, highly active cloud-to-cloud lightning
indicates an extremely active cell, with extreme danger.

2\. Lightning can reach a /long/ way to get you. The closest call I ever had,
the storm was 15 miles away. I was standing outside watching it and it struck
2 feet away from me. It wasn't a stringer either - it was a full discharge and
sent me flying (more through my own surprise than physical force).

3\. If you can hear thunder, you can get struck quite easily.

4\. A few drops of rain increase the chances of being struck by several orders
of magnitude. The atmosphere is far more conductive and therefor danger
skyrockets.

5\. Lightning will strike the most out-of-way/odd places. I've watched it
blitz trees in a deep valley over and over again without hitting the peaks
once. There is no predicting what is likely to get struck.

6\. In an instable environment, any cloud that is rising rapidly is extremely
suspect. I once was watching a storm that was cranking away about 10 miles
off. A small cumulus tower went up next to me, but didn't look like much. 30
seconds later it discharged only about 1/4 mile away.

7\. Some wikipedia entries and other sources state lightning is uncommon over
water and the open ocean. This is completely untrue - there is a lot of it. If
you are boating and see a squall, be prepared to book it out of there as a
boat is a highly dangerous place to be during a storm.

8\. A fantastic shot of the close-range effects of lightning is 00:01:15 into
this video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7K3m2zHEhs>

What you'll notice about that shot is the effect it has and how very clear it
is, along with how quiet it is at close range. The sparks off the metal roof,
the movement of the actual channel, even the rate at which it discharges is
apparent. Probably one of the best shots so far (though I welcome others!)

Stay safe.

~~~
pge
As someone who also has first hand experience with a severe lightning strike
(that left one dead and 11 hospitalized) and on a separate occasion saw a lot
of people with hair sticking straight up (we ran to our cars before lightning
struck that time), I second this. Don't assume you're safe because you're not
near a high point. Lightning strikes wherever. And never, ever, ever stand
under a tree. They make great conductors, but your body (a sack of salt water)
is an even better conductor, so the lightning jumps to you. Last, lightning
strikes are one of the cases where CPR can be effective. The body is still
well-oxygenatd, but the heart may stop from the shock, so keeping blood
circulating can save a life.

One other thing to be aware of, one the injuries that lightning causes is
blindness (temporary but possibly lasting a couple of days). Several of those
closest to the strike were blinded - it was described to me as a sunburn of
the retina, where vision is not restored until the burns heals. That may not
be medically accurate, but describes the experience they went through.

~~~
sigkill
>Don't assume you're safe because you're not near a high point

Yet again human intuition proves counter-intuitive. It's easier for us to
visualize that being at a high point is more dangerous than a lower place. If
there were a method to use FFT and convert land from a height map to the
resistance/conductivity domain, I'm sure there will be very very surprising
results.

~~~
brazzy
It has nothing to do with intuition, just with over-simplification. It _is_
true that high points tend to attract lightning and that this can make you
safe. The effect just isn't as strong as most people think.

Basically, the "leader" that establishes the path through which the main
discharge will happen moves randomly downwards, but will be strongly attracted
towards grounded objects that it comes close enough to - and "close enough" is
only about 50 meters. So if there is a high point within a sphere of 50m
radius centered 50m above your head, you're indeed almost completely safe (or
at least you won't be hit directly - what hit Marlin was apparently a part of
the charge that was moving through his house.

~~~
slacka
I grew up in an area that frequently had thunderstorms. I witnessed many
strikes in my yard, including my house while I was in it, and investigated
many in my neighborhood. Much of what the OP said was bullshit. If it were
true, the lightning rods that attracted and diverted many strikes wouldn't
need to be place high.

The strikes always hit taller object like houses and trees and I never ever
saw a strike or evidence of one in the middle of a field.

~~~
kposehn
Please don't generalize your experience across the entirety of all possible
occurences.

1\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqzjk1kp5Ug> \- Notice in the shot how the
lightning hits a small, low-in-the-water boat.

2\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keVm06H26ik> \- In Boulder, with the
mountains right next door, lightning strikes twice in the city proper, around
1,000 feet lower in elevation.

3\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKw9kpD0rNc> \- Lightning strikes the
water, less than a hundred feet away, instead of the palm trees the
photographer is at.

My point was that assuming lightning will strike the highest point is patently
false; it doesn't meant that a valley isn't any safer than a mountain - just
don't assume that being in a valley protects you.

------
ChuckMcM
First, as others have said, if you get hit by lightning or have any sort of
severe electrical shock, so see a doctor and be checked out. The reasoning
here is that any of the current that passes through you will create internal
burns, resulting any number of issues.

The second thing is that often these voltages travel on the surface of a
conductor (called the skin effect) rather than through the middle so if you
don't have a hole in your skin with a burn mark around it (that is what you
are looking for in step one above) you might dodge serious damage.

A friend of mine in high school was hit by lightning why riding his motorcycle
off road around Las Vegas (back when it was easier to do that :-) and was fine
except for two pretty bad burns, one where his belt buckle was (apparently it
got red hot) and on his feet where the metal in his riding boots was similarly
heated up.

~~~
sharkweek
Yes, please, Jason if you're here, for the love of God please go see a doctor
--

Step-dad is a firefighter; so many times they get to the scenes of accidents,
and everything looks fine on the outside, patient feels completely fine so
refuses ride to the hospital, but then 2-3 hours (sometimes even up to a day
later) they end up far worse off and sometimes even dead from internal
injuries that EMTs are not qualified to assess.

~~~
nostromo
Ambulance rides are crazy expensive and insurance companies like to question
if you actually needed one. If you don't need the EMT, just take Lyft to the
ER.

~~~
flexd
It's such a surreal concept to me that having to be picked up by emergency
services will cost you money. I feel so incredibly lucky to live in a country
where healthcare is free.

~~~
rdl
I'd rather see the _direct_ or _marginal_ costs of the ambulance or paramedics
billed to the user (so, if they expend saline, or bandages, or whatever, you
pay for it), and the hourly wage and vehicle costs for the trip itself. That
would price a routine EMT-B ambulance trip around $100 -- still enough that
people who didn't need it would take a taxi or drive themselves to a doctor
for a non-incapacitating problem, but cheap enough that it could be paid out
of pocket.

The costs of keeping ambulances ready, training, etc. could be socialized
somehow. I benefit by having 5-10 minute EMS response times even if I never
use it for 70 years, so paying for that out of taxes or some other universal
subscription fee to users makes sense, rather than putting all the costs on
those unlucky enough to need it.

~~~
lostlogin
If you're prepared to socialise some of it, why not go the whole hog. Is there
anyone who thinks that ambulances should e user pays? It simplifies things
too, as a fair portion of accidents have a blameless victim, so the cost makes
them a victim twice.

~~~
rdl
The problem is when it's totally socialized (like medicare), you end up with
people abusing the service. If an ambulance ride costs you _less than a taxi
or even bus_ , and you're an asshole, you use an ambulance (in some places,
provided by paramedics, so the direct costs _are_ high -- in some places they
also send a fire truck, so you end up with like 20 highly-trained guys and
$500k of equipment) to go to a routine checkup. 3-5 times a week.

You could probably waive charging direct costs if you had some other way of
deterring abuse, but they essentially always have to respond to 911 calls, so
the only way I could think of doing so would be to arrest someone who misuses
the service. A policy of informally losing the bill for legitimate calls might
work, or doing the standard drug dealer "first one's free" strategy. But I
don't think $100-500 for an ambulance would break most people, particularly
with insurance; a charity could also cover the bills for some people.

~~~
NamTaf
No you don't, because there's no obligation for the ambulance officers to pick
you up and take you. A taxi is in the business of taking anyone they can
anywhere they can. An ambulance is not. The only time they'll _offer_ you a
ride is if they judge that you may need of it, so already qualified ambulance
officers have deemed you a possible candidate requiring their services.
Moreover, they've only got one destination - the hospital - and it's not as if
many people want to go there willingly. It's not as if you can call up an
ambulance to pick you up and take you down to the pub for the night. If the
ambulance officers are qualified to recognise medical emergencies (they are -
that's their job) then they're qualified to determine who requires ambulance
transportation and can filter patients accordingly.

The problem with 'a charity covering the bill' is that you then need people to
donate out of goodwill. That doesn't often happen.

There's already fines and punishment for abusing emergency support systems
(e.g.: calling 000/911/your country's equivalent). Even if you abuse that, and
even if you mislead the call centre operator to dispatch an ambulance to your
house, they're not going to ferry you to your desired location unless your
vitals show reason to consider it a possible requirement.

Ambulance services are free here, insofar as you pay for a small tax on every
rates bill (said rates cover ambulance and waste management services) _edit:
Apparently not since 2003 - it's now simply just covered by the State_.
There's no out-of-pocket expense. I can guarantee you that we don't have
ambulances running people not requiring their services around 24/7.

~~~
fhd2
I can confirm this, works just fine in Germany and ambulances are free (i.e.
covered by mandatory health insurance). And even if it would be abused - which
I really can't imagine - I'd much prefer 100 idiots free riding to the
hospital to one person dying because he can't afford the trip.

~~~
hkolek
I was always told that here (Austria) if you call the ambulance but are not in
actual danger you have to pay for it, and that it's very expensive. But you
can call an emergency physician if you're not sure if somethings wrong which
is free in any case afaik. They will examine you and make a determination if
you need to go the hospital. My mother once called them because she was
concentrating so hard on her heartbeat while trying to sleep that she started
to panic because she thought it wasn't beating normally. The emergency
physician examined her and deemed everything normal, made her calm down, and
then just left. I was told if she had called the ambulance it would have cost
a lot.

------
sp332
For all of you wondering about the doctor thing, here's his answer from the
comments on that page:

 _Jason Marlin Technical Director reply 29 minutes ago Story Author report
spam ignore user

>Onerunjunior wrote:

>I don't understand how you can justify not going to the doctor for testing
after you've been hit by lightning. If not for yourself, go get checked out
for your wife and kid. It's incredibly stupid not to.

No I agree and do plan on going - was going to try and get in today. I
probably should have just cruised with the guys yesterday but they were so
nonchalant about the whole thing I was like "welp, guess only losers see the
doc when struck by zeus"._

Edit: from another comment

 _I should be better about these things, but have had some fairly unimpressive
attempts at diagnosis for various issues over the past few years. I feel a bit
like if you don't have blood squirting out of your eyes, it's assumed that
you're either a) trying to score meds or b) seeking attention (why not both?).
HOWEVER, I have scheduled an appointment for tomorrow morning. I'll update the
post if I die :)_

------
jerrya
Men are often discouraged by society from seeking first aid or admitting any
sort of ailment or weakness.

Plus Emergency Rooms are known for very long wait times, especially if you are
otherwise looking in good health. (triage favors the folks bleeding out).

If you are presented a bill, it's not just an ER charge but a charge from the
ER, from the doctor, the anesthetist, and seemingly everyone staffing the ER
seems to have their own bill and billing agency.

That's above and beyond the high cost of ER care.

~~~
nsxwolf
I don't know if the pressure to "man up" extends to lightning strikes. I think
you get a pass on that one.

~~~
furyofantares
Except here is a quote from the author

> No I agree and do plan on going - was going to try and get in today. I
> probably should have just cruised with the guys yesterday but they were so
> nonchalant about the whole thing I was like "welp, guess only losers see the
> doc when struck by zeus".

~~~
georgemcbay
I think he misread the situation. If you're an EMT it is clearly in your best
interest to remain calm and project an air of calmness to others because
you're going to be in situations where the shit is hitting the fan and keeping
your cool is the difference between someone living and dying.

An EMT calmly telling you that you really should go to the ER with them is
likely not being "nonchalant", just level-headed. I'm sure this guy is sick of
hearing it by now but he made an unwise decision, even if it turns out he's
fine after all.

------
effbott
Only in America would somebody think twice about seeing doctor after being
struck by lightning.

~~~
sneak
There's a whole lot of hyperbole here. There are lots of places that this
holds true.

~~~
javert
Yes, but we should be completely ashamed that our medical system is so poor in
every way. I mean, who are we comparing to, Zimbabwe?

I personally am in favor of copying the (excellent and very effective)
veterinary model for our human medical care, not continuing to copy the model
that was used for governing the Soviet Union.

~~~
brightsize
Right, like when the patient gets really sick, or care uncomfortably
expensive, he/she gets the Magic Needle.

------
sc00ter
From his comments defending not visiting ER given a recent unrelated health
issue: _The hospital billed $11,000 for a cat scan; the insurance paid 6k.'_

Seriously, if you need a an elective scan and it's going to cost you more than
a couple of grand after insurance: take a vacation, fly first class, stay in a
5 star hotel, get seen privately in a first class facility, have a relaxing
rejuvenating break, and come home with change. Cost of a full-body CT scan in
Europe?: < $1000.[1]

[1] [http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/private-healthcare-
services/d...](http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/private-healthcare-
services/diagnostic-imaging/ct-scans/ct-scan-prices/) Other parts of Europe
(and no doubt elsewhere outside the US) will be much cheaper still.

~~~
lostlogin
Cost of full body CT scan may be greater than that - it would likely put you
in Hiroshima-survivor radiation dose range.

Edit: did some reading. The risk is surprisingly low. For a 45 year old a
single whole body scan has a mortality risk of 0.08%, and if the same person
had one annually thereafter till 75, its a 1.9% lifetime risk. David, Brennee
and Ellison in Radiology, 2004.

------
Jabbles
_"The EMTs took my vitals and urged me to go to the hospital for testing. I
declined"_

At the risk of derailing the thread - is this because going to A&E in the US
is expensive?

I wonder how his hearing is.

~~~
kylebgorman
just FYI, most Americans, even many familiar with Britishisms, don't know what
"A&E" is (or rather they think it's a cable channel).

(For those following along at home: A&E is "Accident and emergency
[department]", or what Americans call the ER.)

~~~
Jabbles
Ah, sorry about that. Most people in Britain would be delighted and honoured
to be invited to see ER...

~~~
taejo
And again, for the Americans (and others), in Britain ER is Elizabeth
_regina_. I.e., the Queen.

------
feniv
The odds of getting hit by a lightning is actually surprisingly high (1 in
3000 in an average lifetime). He should really go see a doctor though, since
there's a 70% chance that he may be affected with serious long-term
conditions.

[source :
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts.html)
]

~~~
kunai
I know that I've been on an xkcd spree lately, but for some reason the HN
frontpage is filled with circumstances that match.

<http://xkcd.com/795/>

~~~
famousactress
I'm surprised no one's written a bot yet that auto-picks the most appropriate
xkcd for an HN post and posts a 'relevant xkcd' comment :)

~~~
kunai
You've just given me a new scripting project to undertake over the weekend. :)

~~~
famousactress
Good luck! I imagine there'll be some interesting challenges. I don't know how
useful the alt-text will be since I guess it's sort of a cheeky second-comic,
so coming up with clever ways to index relevant ideas/terms will be
interesting.

You'd probly get some impressive looking results by just taking the echo-
chamber approach of looking for HN links to comics and index what the
discussion was about.

Hell, just hard-coding comments for horse battery staple and bobby tables
would probably pass 30% of the unit tests :)

~~~
nitrogen
There's <http://www.explainxkcd.com/>, and some of the comics have a <div
id="transcript"> _transcript here_ </div>.

------
jostmey
Uh, it would be wise to see and doctor immediately! The electrical shock may
have damaged your internal organs, even if there are no apparent external
burns.

~~~
Zimahl
I was going to say that too - those Lichtenburg scar pictures that are linked
don't look good. While they might seem 'cool' aren't those just 3rd degree
burn scars? You have to wonder about the 3rd degree burns on the inside that
you can't see.

~~~
icebraining
The scar pictures aren't his: _"nor did I end up with a badass Lichtenburg
scar"_

~~~
Zimahl
I know that he didn't receive any scarring externally. My point was that
anything that can do things like that externally could have resulted in very
bad things internally.

------
mindcrime
Interesting that he had just moved to North Carolina. Strangely enough, NC is
_very_ high up (#4) on the list of "most dangerous states for lighting
accidents"[1].

I'm not not sure exactly what it is about NC that makes us so prone to
lightning related accidents, but we sure do have a lot of them. I'd always
speculated that it was something to do with geography / climate... just the
right sort of semi-tropical climate to have lots of severe late-afternoon
summertime thunderstorms or something. But when you look at the top 10 list,
they seem to be fairly spread out. South, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest and
Northeast all represented. The only conspicuous absence, to me, is the Pacific
Northwest.

Edit: Did some more exploring... this graphic[2] makes it more apparent that
there may be a geographic / climatic correlation. Southern states, Eastern
states and Southwestern states seem to be particularly prone to lighting
strikes and damage, with the Midwest, West and Pacific Northwest seemingly
safer.

But, when you weight by population, the pattern seems much more muddled and
nonsensical. Hmm...

[1]:
[http://weather.about.com/od/thunderstormsandlightning/tp/lig...](http://weather.about.com/od/thunderstormsandlightning/tp/lightningstates.htm)

[2]: <http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lls/fatalities_us.html>

~~~
kposehn
North Carolina is on the eastern ass-end of a common circulation pattern of
cold fronts. They get a lot of the big squall-line fronts with
heavy/torrential downpours in storm cells, while the mountains act as an extra
lifting mechanism.

With that combo, you get much more lightning overall. This may account for the
high death rate.

The Pacific Northwest has much fewer thunderstorms where population is
concentrated. Go east of the cascades and there are far more storms, but far
fewer people.

~~~
brightsize
Not really. I've lived in Spokane for the past ten years and we almost never
get thunderstorms here. I can remember one big one a couple of years ago where
I thought we were going to get a tornado (something else that never happens
here), but no such luck. That was the only storm excitement in forever. In
general it's a fairly hot/dry place in the summer, and I don't think we get
that magic combo of heat and humidity needed to cook up a good storm.

~~~
kposehn
Wow, really?

I lived there for 3 years and we got a ton of storms. I'm quite surprised -
eastern washington used to get them relatively often during the summer.

Well, eastern Oregon on the eastern slope of the cascades gets quite a few as
well, and I got there often enough to experience them :)

~~~
brightsize
Really. It hardly rains at all in the summer here. Just sun and heat, sun and
heat. Everyone has to water their lawns or they all die. I grew up in New
England where we had proper storms in the summer, and I WISH we had them here,
if only to get a little wx excitement once in a while. Stats:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane,_Washington#Climate>

~~~
kposehn
Huh. Color me confused.

I lived there 1998-2001 while attending Gonzaga. We had a ton of storms in the
spring and summer those years. Must have been a string of odd years.

I live in San Diego now - I haven't seen a good blitz of a storm in sooooo
long ~_~

------
hcarvalhoalves
Well, that's quite amazing it chased him inside the house, and that he
survived considering the ridiculously high punch these things pack. I've
experienced what it can do.

Here in Brazil lighting is common during summer. I had one strike a metal pole
in a cement slab atop my house once. It heated the pole so hot it vaporized
(nowhere to be found), and the slab exploded in hundreds of pieces. All that
debris showering the roof sounded like hail - only after I stepped outside I
found out it wasn't. The ground was covered in debris, still hot. I still have
one of the pieces somewhere.

------
shaydoc
Lightning toasted my house in 2007, just arrived home 30 mins after it
happened, glad I wasn't in the house given the magnitude of the
destruction...TV exploded scrapnel everywhere, ceilings down upstairs and
down....but worst of all, dealing with our insurance company for damages...

Can't believe this guy is not the only family member to have been hit, insane!

~~~
derleth
> scrapnel

The usual word is 'shrapnel', but this actually makes more sense in a
portmanteau word sort of way: It's scraps that were hurled around as shrapnel.
Scrapnel.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau>

~~~
nsxwolf
And to be extra pedantic, the TV tube would have imploded.

------
eaurouge
No one has mentioned the use of a lightning rod on the roof to provide an
alternate path. Does anyone know how effective these are in practice?

~~~
mmagin
My understanding of lightning rods is that they help more in that they help
dissipate charges from the surrounding air, preventing a strike, rather than
actually taking the strike, in most cases. Though, in such case lightning
struck the building, it's much more likely it would go through the lightning
protection system if properly installed.

~~~
btilly
_My understanding of lightning rods is that they help more in that they help
dissipate charges from the surrounding air, preventing a strike, rather than
actually taking the strike, in most cases._

Your understanding is incorrect. See, for example
[http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/lightning/lightning_faq.ht...](http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/lightning/lightning_faq.htm),
for evidence that lightning rods increase the odds of being struck by
lightning and decrease the damage if you are.

~~~
eaurouge
From your link:

 _Lightning rods will not prevent your building from being struck. They
actually INCREASE it by making your house TALLER. The purpose of the lightning
rod is to direct the current from the lightning to the ground along a
preferred path instead of to the house. However, this works only if the rod is
connected to the ground with heavy gauge wire._

It's a bit more complex than that. From my quick browse on the Internet, it
seems there's a slight increase in odds caused by the increase in height. But
if the rod can actively and effectively dissipate the electric field then that
should mitigate the increase in odds (and then some) caused by the added
height. Finally, if well constructed, a lightning rod will reduce the amount
of damage caused.

~~~
btilly
Care to share links? If not then I still consider the national weather service
to be more definitive. Particularly since what it says agrees perfectly with
the physics courses that I took 20+ years ago, which indicated that the taller
and pointier a metal object is, the better a target it becomes for static
electricity discharges of all kinds - including lightning.

~~~
eaurouge
_They actually INCREASE it by making your house TALLER._

 _the taller and pointier a metal object is, the better a target it becomes
for static electricity discharges of all kinds..._

I'm not disputing any of the above. But how much more likely or "better a
target" does the rod make it? I couldn't find any quantitative measure of the
increase in odds. Do you have any? If the odds of a strike are increased by
just 1%, that statement by the NWS is still correct. Would you discount the
use of a lightning rod because it ever so slightly increases the odds of a
strike, when you know it also offers the additional benefits of dissipation
and a safe path to ground?

~~~
btilly
I do not discount the value of lightning rods. Exactly because having a safe
path to the ground is a real benefit.

But I am discounting the reality of "dissipation" as an advantage. In fact the
opposite should be true. To the extent that you create a cloud of negative
charge, you should attract lightning, not avoid it.

------
merraksh
From one top comment:

 _Buildings with rods didn't get struck; buildings without, did. And the
conflict was finally settled, once and for all, when a church somewhere in
Spain was struck by lightning, setting off explosives that were stored
underneath, leveling the town and killing most of the people in it._

I couldn't find references to this. Does anyone know any?

~~~
Aardwolf
I also tried to search for one and also couldn't find one. However, my
searching brought me to this rather interesting article:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_artificial_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_artificial_non-
nuclear_explosions)

~~~
merraksh
I saw this link and didn't bother to check it, but I think you hit the
jackpot:

 _Palace of the Grand Master Explosion, in Rhodes_

 _On 4 April 1856, the Ottomans had storaged a large amount of gunpowder in
the palace and the adjacent church, which were also full of people. In that
time, it was considered that the ringing of bells could prevent the formation
of storms. Unfortunately, a lightning hit the gunpowder, triggering a huge
blast that killed 4,000 people._

Thanks.

------
Jabbles
I wonder if teflon coated shoes would be effective, if rubber are not?

Might have a problem with grip though...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_con...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity#Resistivity_of_various_materials)

~~~
CoffeeDregs

        I wonder if teflon coated shoes would be effective, if rubber are not?
    

No. You have to consider the distance through air. Electricity will still take
the path of least resistance which, even if you're wearing rubber or teflon
shoes, is still just a couple of centimeters out of the shoe and to the
ground. As the article points out: the lightning just traveled a kilometer to
get to you, so why would it care about a few centimeters or inches or _meters_
of insulating material when it would just hop through the air around it and to
the ground.---

\--- I suppose that you could argue that a really large teflon pad would
increase the aggregate resistance (through your nice, self-contained ocean and
then over the large teflon pad) to such an extent that the lightning would
pass by you and ground directly, but those would be giant shoes and the little
gap between them would probably defeat the whole purpose of wearing giant
teflon snow-shoes.

~~~
glurgh
It doesn't seem inconceivable that wearing shoes takes you out of the path of
least resistance as compared to some other path, say, the metal-framed
shelving you are standing next to. I don't think wearing shoes is any kind of
practical way to avoid getting hit by lightning but the 'kilometers of air'
argument seems sort of wrongheaded. You don't need to become a more resistant
path to ground than a kilometer of air - you just have to be more so than
other paths. How long the discharge traveled to form that path doesn't really
matter.

~~~
comrade_ogilvy
Unfortunately, simply reaching the ground may not be sufficient. The ground is
not necessarily a good enough conductor to dissipate the full charge quickly.
The rest of the charge flows near the ground looking for more ground.

Most lightning strike survivors are probably surviving "near misses", albeit
sometimes ones where substantial electricity flowed through their body. A
direct hit is probably going to be lethal nearly 100% of time -- there is a
lot of energy in a lightning strike.

------
lostlogin
We had a wood burner installed - they put up the chimney and were going to
earth it the next day. Bad idea. Lightning fried a Mac SE30, made its enormous
colour (!!) 19 inch screen only show orange and ruined the phones.

------
nnq
> I mean, my grandmother was struck by lightning twice—how bad can it be?

...uhm ...can anyone here compute the probability of 2 people in one family
being struck by lighting in this timerange/pattern.

~~~
dclowd9901
After reading through this thread, you'd think it was commonplace. My guess is
that people have bastardized the concept of "being struck by lightning," in
that they weren't struck, just close to a strike.

------
ndesaulniers
The image at the top of the article is Derek Rigg's album art for Iron
Maiden's 1985 Live After Death live album. It is one of my favorite album
arts. It is the desktop wallpaper on most of my computers. It's so intricate,
I could stare at it all day and notice new things hidden in the image. You can
see the rest of his work for Iron Maiden here: <http://derek.server311.com/>

------
rttlesnke
This page has a lot of information about lightning:
[http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-
science...](http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-science-and-
myths-behind-lightning-strikes/)

------
BrotherErryn
Boy, that takes me back to the two times I was struck. 15 the first time, my
legs didn't work for about 15 minutes. Second time I only know about because
witnesses told me (it's a black space in my memory).

------
kybernetyk
I don't understand why he didn't go to the hospital. You might feel fine but
your heart might have got a little disturbed - and that can be enough to cause
serious complications.

------
raymondduke
I think the most surprising thing about this was that I learned people still
use IRC.

~~~
sdfjkl
About 600k users every day, and that's only the public networks. More
statistics: <http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/summary.php>

For developers working in teams, there is no better way to communicate as a
group. Text chat has a scroll back, you can opt to participate in the
conversation or just lurk, check it on your own time but are never interrupted
in your focus by it (unless you set it up that way).

------
biot
There's a great comment on lightning and religion:
[http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/i-was-struck-by-
light...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/i-was-struck-by-lightning-
yesterday-and-boy-am-i-sore/?comments=1&post=24552037#comment-24552037)

------
tn13
He aint got no superpowers ?

------
alxndr
Wow, glad he's okay!

------
Zedronar
Scumbag wizard.

------
fakeer
Guys, I am often caught in the rain(in Bangalore it's raining these days - and
I've, seeing B'lore traffic, decided to rely on public transport) as I have to
walk a lot, from drop points - and I keep walking, reaching home sometimes
partially soaked and sometimes fully. So, should I just stop it? I mean I feel
good getting soaked in the rain from time to time.

And when do I know, if there's a way, that 'okay, no fooling around in rains
today - looks like it's bad today'? Or I should just avoid altogether?

Also, as the OP has mentioned he was in a room so I am sure it was well
insulated, so that means standing in the shop sheds is just gonna save me from
the rain and not the lighting, right? What about standing beneath dense and
big trees?

And I wear a leather shoe or sports shoe - both with plastic/fiber/rubber
soles(I'm not sure) - so they are gonna help? Umbrella?

Cars, with all those metals around must be most unsafe then?

~~~
honzzz
You're safe in a car because the lightning will travel around the surface of
the vehicle and then go to ground.This occurs because the vehicle acts like a
Faraday cage.

[http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-
disasters/li...](http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-
disasters/lightning8.htm)

------
rusbra
Sounds like crazyness to me

