3 ms·

Survived? How can I tell? Ok, 30 yards then. As one who was like 30 yards from a 60’ lone maple tree in an open field, the thunderous crack of the trunk spli

Survived? How can I tell? Ok, 30 yards then. As one who was like 30 yards from a 60’ lone maple tree in an open field, the thunderous crack of the trunk split open in half by a lightning strike. No warning whatsoever (other than full cloudy cover). Weirdest part is that my deafness made me rather immune to being startled toward such loud noises. Your body feels it all over. If a rave is your thing, this is THE thing. My gaze zoomed in at the long field grasses that had started to straighten upward and starting outward from the base of that tree. Felt like it was the longest 1,000 yard stare but a myopic gaze of a lifetime. It was then when the hairs at the back of my neck stood up violently straight out and alarmingly so. Even weirdly so, the grasses started to straigten up in an ever rapidly expanding concentric ring from that spot. Like that reticular shockwave after a bomb exploded but it wasn’t at speed of sound, much less at speed of light. I started staring at the edge of a single undulation ring of straighten field grass as it rapidly approached me; that is one fast approaching ring-of-SOMETHING (at what seems to be about 14 meter per second). Intense fear rushed over me. My instinct? Jump over it as the ring passes under me and timingly so. Felt nothing. Just then noticed the smoldering wood splinters at the base afterward. Did I escape the electric charge? I will never know.

neilv 4y ago
The instinctive jumping over some incomprehensible phenomenon, in the moment, also worked unbelievably well, the one time I did it. I'd just applied a spray-on anti-slip floor treatment to the very-very-tiny bathroom floor, in a dodgy student apartment (mainly to cover up some ugly stained Linoleum). Then I see this tide of a thin layer of flame rolling rapidly at me, along the floor from the adjacent kitchen. Without thinking, I somehow jumped seemingly backwards, onto the edge of the bathtub, somehow didn't fall, and then jumped forwards, over the tide of flame, and out of the bathroom with the flaming floor treatment. Afterwards, I mentioned that I'd had the thought "fire shouldn't be coming from that direction", and I suspect that I was already jumping before that thought registered. After the automatic, cat-like jumping, which I didn't know I had in me, I then consciously focused on grabbing kitchen fire extinguisher, and putting out the flames. (Turns out that a gas from the floor treatment was highly flammable, and apparently heavier than air. Gas had rolled out, into the kitchen, and got to the pilot light beneath the apartment's mini oven/range.)
thayne 4y ago
My guess for the ring is that it was excess charge from the bolt dissipating. My guess is that it wouldn't have hurt you much, probably would have just made your hair stand on end, as the charge would cause your hairs to repel each other, which is probably what was making the grass stand up. All the same, probably good you jumped over it, just in case.
- egberts1 4y ago
  That’s the thing, my timing comprises of curious but separate set of phenomenon: - I felt the gradual rise of my hair-ends before the lumination period of lighting strike. This is most commonly documented. - the unexplained violent rise of my hair ends at the nape of my neck rose shortly after the lumination period like within 300 meter/sec (speed of sound? or radiating electrical transference through humid air? ground-based? or pyschological? speed of nerve cells?). There are many excerpts to this account but its not common and little in the way of white papers on this. - the rushing oncoming grass undulation is like 14 meter/second. obviously the “grasses” takes longest to transfer these electric charges. Barely any excerpts to this aspect (I seen more excerpts and photos of people being literally charred by lightning while sitting on toilet than this part). EDIT: I have since learned that “water/air-based electron drift velocity” or “multi-phase Fermi velocity” may best describes this. arguably the moisture of each grass stalk doing electric charge transfer en masse between dew droplets or maybe even its own internal grass stalk moisture? Liken it to a group transference of electric charges going from many cycles of water to air to water to air? This remains a fascinating topic but in 1978 we did not have the words to this phenomenon until now. https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2014/02/19/what-is-the-speed-of-electricity/ https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2014/02/19/what-is-t...

neilv 4y ago

The instinctive jumping over some incomprehensible phenomenon, in the moment, also worked unbelievably well, the one time I did it. I'd just applied a spray-on anti-slip floor treatment to the very-very-tiny bathroom floor, in a dodgy student apartment (mainly to cover up some ugly stained Linoleum). Then I see this tide of a thin layer of flame rolling rapidly at me, along the floor from the adjacent kitchen. Without thinking, I somehow jumped seemingly backwards, onto the edge of the bathtub, somehow didn't fall, and then jumped forwards, over the tide of flame, and out of the bathroom with the flaming floor treatment. Afterwards, I mentioned that I'd had the thought "fire shouldn't be coming from that direction", and I suspect that I was already jumping before that thought registered. After the automatic, cat-like jumping, which I didn't know I had in me, I then consciously focused on grabbing kitchen fire extinguisher, and putting out the flames. (Turns out that a gas from the floor treatment was highly flammable, and apparently heavier than air. Gas had rolled out, into the kitchen, and got to the pilot light beneath the apartment's mini oven/range.)

thayne 4y ago

My guess for the ring is that it was excess charge from the bolt dissipating. My guess is that it wouldn't have hurt you much, probably would have just made your hair stand on end, as the charge would cause your hairs to repel each other, which is probably what was making the grass stand up. All the same, probably good you jumped over it, just in case.

egberts1 4y ago
That’s the thing, my timing comprises of curious but separate set of phenomenon: - I felt the gradual rise of my hair-ends before the lumination period of lighting strike. This is most commonly documented. - the unexplained violent rise of my hair ends at the nape of my neck rose shortly after the lumination period like within 300 meter/sec (speed of sound? or radiating electrical transference through humid air? ground-based? or pyschological? speed of nerve cells?). There are many excerpts to this account but its not common and little in the way of white papers on this. - the rushing oncoming grass undulation is like 14 meter/second. obviously the “grasses” takes longest to transfer these electric charges. Barely any excerpts to this aspect (I seen more excerpts and photos of people being literally charred by lightning while sitting on toilet than this part). EDIT: I have since learned that “water/air-based electron drift velocity” or “multi-phase Fermi velocity” may best describes this. arguably the moisture of each grass stalk doing electric charge transfer en masse between dew droplets or maybe even its own internal grass stalk moisture? Liken it to a group transference of electric charges going from many cycles of water to air to water to air? This remains a fascinating topic but in 1978 we did not have the words to this phenomenon until now. https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2014/02/19/what-is-the-speed-of-electricity/ https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/mobile/2014/02/19/what-is-t...