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I saw a program on Japanese tv last night about this kid who was playing football with his school team when he got hit by lightning and seemed very lucky to be alive. Seems the school didn't think that the lightning was near enough to be a threat at the time, but it sure was. But lightning sure is wild though, scary stuff. I think next time I see any in the distance I might just go quickly indoors.

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Actually there are many stories with people that have survived a lightning strike. Most of them have a common point; all the victims were found without any clothes or very few shredded pieces. There is a good scientific explanation how something like this can happen.

The victims before being stroke by the lightning they were walking in the rain without any umbrella or they were engaged in an activity that didn`t allow them to hold any. Consequentially their cloths were literally soaked from the rain. Now, according to measurements the average electrical resistance of the human body is higher than that of the wet clothes. Since electricity always follows the path with smaller resistance, a lightning will also follow the path that has the smallest resistance, i.e. the "wet clothes".

Now during this procedure the clothes usually "explode" or even "melt" in fractions of a second. Also the victim is stunned from the blast.

That`s the reason why the victims are found without clothes and unconscious, but alive!

 

It`s all about physics!!!! clap.gif

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I saw a video of a football pitch that got hit by lightning. Those players who happened to be standing on one leg (running) at the time of the strike were OK. Those who were standing with their legs apart all fell down, either dead or unconscious.

 

A legs apart stance just invites the electricity to run up one leg, cook your innards, and run down the other leg. So let's keep our legs together or hop shall we when we sense lightning coming.

 

I went running a while ago on a bad lightning day on a golf-course. I knew it was a stupid risk, and in fact, a shot of lightning came down somewhere very close to me with a loud bang which made me think I was dead for a moment.

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I used to work with a guy who'd been struck by lightning 3 times.

 

3 TIMES!!

 

Once is plain unlucky. Twice? Well, you'd start to check the weather a bit more carefully. But 3 times? You have to be trying to get hit!

 

Mind you, he was pretty odd...

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Some other facts:

- A lightning strike on average is around 8,000 degrees celcius (though some have been measured at 50,000 deg C - 4 times hotter than chronosphere of sun), and is only 5 to 8cm in diameter.

- This temperature can also be attributed to the 'exploding clothes' phenomenon, since any water on the human will instantly turn to steam and expand away from the body rapidly (doesn't sounds as cool as tsondaboy's explanation though)

- The sudden heating and ionizing of the air around a strike causes an explosive expansion: thunder.

- Before being struck, and sometimes without being struck, a person can feel a large amount of static electricity in the air around them. I think I read once that it can make your hair stand on end (wouldn't affect me .... shaved & balding head). These are apparently 'feelers' looking for a good path to ground.

- A person's breathing mechanism can be affected by lightning strike due to the contraction & spasming of the muscles in the chest. After even 30 minutes of this, with someone breathing for them they can recover remarkably.

- Finally, with such heat, voltage and power, lightning can pretty much travel through anything. Indeed, my house was once struck by lightning - it went through a tree and the roof tiles like butter, and hit an old carbon graphite based fishing rod, which was sitting right above a power junction under the house. We weren't home, but man it would've looked cool!

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