7 ms·

How to Survive a Lightning Strike (2014)

40 points by gringoDan 7y ago

Simulacra 7y ago
Interesting, but it appears the first step is to avoid getting struck by lightning in the first place.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  You can't survive a lightning strike unless you get struck by lightning.
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
> 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.
objektif 7y ago
How does the striking mechanism work? Doesnt the current go through the tallest object around or not nevessarily?
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  Well not necessarily, in many cases tree stuck (and burned to rather beautiful pile of ashes) can be an insignificant one deep in the valley, while the ones on top of the hill will keep standing. Or folks getting struck through open window in their room, while building has proper protection. We all have seen the pictures of real lightning, never straight path, rather sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    > sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall The best summary of lightning safety I've ever read!
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  Not necessarily, lightning is an extreme electrical phenomenon. I'm no way an expert, but from what I've read... 1. Lightning doesn't have to hit the tallest object. Electricity doesn't flow into the lowest-impedance path either. It's just probability at work - lightning is more likely to hit the tallest object, and when an object gets a hit, more current flows into the lowest-impedance path, but other path will receive their shares. "Electricity finds the path of least resistance" is only a rule-of-thumb when the resistance of one path is two order-of-magnitude smaller than other path, then approximately 99% of the energy is applied to the short circuit. But when you have a lot of different path with impedance of similar order-of-magnitude, every path will receive some energy. If the object is a lightning protection system, it has incrediblly low impedance than other objects, so it will do its best to redirect all energy to ground and ensure that the probability of hitting other objections is very low, but still, if there's an unintended high impedance path within the protected system (e.g. two large metal structures are grounded separately, but not connected with a think metal bar, a voltage difference can develop between the two), then some energy won't be redirected to ground as intended and will attempt to flow through other objects with lower impedance, and it'll destroy other objects along the way. It's why we still see damages from time to time. Worse, in nature there's no such conductor designed for lightning protection, all objects are vulnerable, it's just some are a bit more vulnerable to others, like the tallest tree. 2. Lightning doesn't have to hit you directly to cause injury. Recall Electrical Safety 101, if you connect a 110V/220V "hot" wire to a grounded object, the low impedance ground will keep the voltage of such object low to ensure safety. But if it's a HV line, it's another story, the Earth itself is not a perfect conductor, the point closer to the voltage source will have less resistance, thus a voltage gradient forms, there can be a significant voltage difference on Earth between your legs.
- tacon 7y ago
  Lightning depends on the electric field exceeding the dielectric insulation of the air. Some random charge floating around eventually forms a current, and that is the "random" path the lightning bolt takes to discharge. Lightning rods are designed with very sharp tips, the high curvature of which leads to a higher local electric field. Thus, a lightning rod works to discharge to ground an area of air around the point and prevent a larger buildup of voltage. [0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/184374/why-do-lightning-rods-have-a-sharp-point-at-the-top/184394 https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/184374/why-do-li...
- woeirua 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    > 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.
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago
  Something I learned recently was that lying on the ground might seem like a good idea, but it isn't the safest position. It is thought, though I think the science is kind of out still, that the safest position is basically squatting and holding your knees. IIRC, lying down increases the chance that a near strike will still send current over you.
mauvehaus 7y ago
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.
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  The hair thing is a short range effect: if you were within say 10m then maybe. It's not intended for people with a mile or so. As you say, if you're close enough to feel it, you will likely get a face full of the tree or whatever it hit before you have time to recognize and react...
asdfman123 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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-place-during/17283636 https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-safe...
BrandonMarc 7y ago
Needs a better title: How to survive the aftermath of a lightning strike
- mhb 7y ago
  Why It's Bad to be Struck by Lightning
sethammons 7y ago
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 7y ago
  Rather it's a great choice of a title given the editors' incentives. It's highbrow clickbait title with decent content
- Apofis 7y ago
  How to survive a lightning strike: Don't get hit by lightning.
Magical 7y ago
In school I learned that if you are a conductive person, you are more likely to be struck, but also more likely to survive as the lightning would go through you faster.
Exquisites 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - mhb 7y ago
    Better evidence is that the lightning has already traveled through hundreds of feet of air which is a much better insulator than one foot of rubber.
    - jascii 7y ago
      Lightning travels through a channel of ionized air which isn't a very good insulator at all.
      - yummypaint 7y ago
        Its odd the the old misconception of lightning as a simple electrostatic discharge still reigns. Electrical breakdown in air happens around 3 MV/meter. The potentials generated in clouds are very large but not remotely close to what would be required to reach the ground. Moreover, slow motion footage that can be found anywhere clearly shows branching tendrils descending very slowly, followed by the rapid return stroke after the line of plasma reaches the ground. I have heard that part of the mechanism that ionizes air and propagates the tendrils involves production of high intensity x-rays. I wonder if this could have health effects in itself.
      - mhb 7y ago
        Sure, but the air isn't ionized before the lightning ionizes it. In any case, it's moot since the lightning could bypass the rubber by going through the air next to it.
neom 7y ago
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.
Jeff_Brown 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.

40 points by gringoDan 7y ago

Simulacra 7y ago

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

stronglikedan 7y ago
You can't survive a lightning strike unless you get struck by lightning.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago

> 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.

objektif 7y ago

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

saiya-jin 7y ago
Well not necessarily, in many cases tree stuck (and burned to rather beautiful pile of ashes) can be an insignificant one deep in the valley, while the ones on top of the hill will keep standing. Or folks getting struck through open window in their room, while building has proper protection. We all have seen the pictures of real lightning, never straight path, rather sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  > sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall The best summary of lightning safety I've ever read!
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
Not necessarily, lightning is an extreme electrical phenomenon. I'm no way an expert, but from what I've read... 1. Lightning doesn't have to hit the tallest object. Electricity doesn't flow into the lowest-impedance path either. It's just probability at work - lightning is more likely to hit the tallest object, and when an object gets a hit, more current flows into the lowest-impedance path, but other path will receive their shares. "Electricity finds the path of least resistance" is only a rule-of-thumb when the resistance of one path is two order-of-magnitude smaller than other path, then approximately 99% of the energy is applied to the short circuit. But when you have a lot of different path with impedance of similar order-of-magnitude, every path will receive some energy. If the object is a lightning protection system, it has incrediblly low impedance than other objects, so it will do its best to redirect all energy to ground and ensure that the probability of hitting other objections is very low, but still, if there's an unintended high impedance path within the protected system (e.g. two large metal structures are grounded separately, but not connected with a think metal bar, a voltage difference can develop between the two), then some energy won't be redirected to ground as intended and will attempt to flow through other objects with lower impedance, and it'll destroy other objects along the way. It's why we still see damages from time to time. Worse, in nature there's no such conductor designed for lightning protection, all objects are vulnerable, it's just some are a bit more vulnerable to others, like the tallest tree. 2. Lightning doesn't have to hit you directly to cause injury. Recall Electrical Safety 101, if you connect a 110V/220V "hot" wire to a grounded object, the low impedance ground will keep the voltage of such object low to ensure safety. But if it's a HV line, it's another story, the Earth itself is not a perfect conductor, the point closer to the voltage source will have less resistance, thus a voltage gradient forms, there can be a significant voltage difference on Earth between your legs.
tacon 7y ago
Lightning depends on the electric field exceeding the dielectric insulation of the air. Some random charge floating around eventually forms a current, and that is the "random" path the lightning bolt takes to discharge. Lightning rods are designed with very sharp tips, the high curvature of which leads to a higher local electric field. Thus, a lightning rod works to discharge to ground an area of air around the point and prevent a larger buildup of voltage. [0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/184374/why-do-lightning-rods-have-a-sharp-point-at-the-top/184394 https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/184374/why-do-li...
woeirua 7y ago
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 7y ago
  > 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.
wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago
Something I learned recently was that lying on the ground might seem like a good idea, but it isn't the safest position. It is thought, though I think the science is kind of out still, that the safest position is basically squatting and holding your knees. IIRC, lying down increases the chance that a near strike will still send current over you.

mauvehaus 7y ago

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.

LatteLazy 7y ago
The hair thing is a short range effect: if you were within say 10m then maybe. It's not intended for people with a mile or so. As you say, if you're close enough to feel it, you will likely get a face full of the tree or whatever it hit before you have time to recognize and react...

asdfman123 7y ago

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 7y ago
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-place-during/17283636 https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-safe...

BrandonMarc 7y ago

Needs a better title: How to survive the aftermath of a lightning strike

mhb 7y ago
Why It's Bad to be Struck by Lightning

sethammons 7y ago

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 7y ago
Rather it's a great choice of a title given the editors' incentives. It's highbrow clickbait title with decent content
Apofis 7y ago
How to survive a lightning strike: Don't get hit by lightning.

Magical 7y ago

In school I learned that if you are a conductive person, you are more likely to be struck, but also more likely to survive as the lightning would go through you faster.

Exquisites 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
- mhb 7y ago
  Better evidence is that the lightning has already traveled through hundreds of feet of air which is a much better insulator than one foot of rubber.
  - jascii 7y ago
    Lightning travels through a channel of ionized air which isn't a very good insulator at all.
    - yummypaint 7y ago
      Its odd the the old misconception of lightning as a simple electrostatic discharge still reigns. Electrical breakdown in air happens around 3 MV/meter. The potentials generated in clouds are very large but not remotely close to what would be required to reach the ground. Moreover, slow motion footage that can be found anywhere clearly shows branching tendrils descending very slowly, followed by the rapid return stroke after the line of plasma reaches the ground. I have heard that part of the mechanism that ionizes air and propagates the tendrils involves production of high intensity x-rays. I wonder if this could have health effects in itself.
    - mhb 7y ago
      Sure, but the air isn't ionized before the lightning ionizes it. In any case, it's moot since the lightning could bypass the rubber by going through the air next to it.

neom 7y ago

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.

Jeff_Brown 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.