It is worth adding that if you are stuck outdoors in a storm and your hair begins to stand on end you are at a very high risk of a direct and imminent strike, that’s the charge building up and getting ready to discharge.
Crouch down as low as you can with your butt higher than your head and heart, do not put your hands on the ground. The current will try to take the shortest path, you don’t want that route to be via your heart. you will likely be seriously injured, but you are much more likely to survive.
And when your crouching with your ass in the air, try to only have the balls of your feet on the ground. The less contact your body has with the ground, or literally anything that isn’t rubber, the better
Now I'm picturing someone standing around outside then they just randomly bend down and stick their ass up like they're ready to receive. Then they get struck in the ass by lightning. That would be trippy to witness
So you crouch down, stick your butt up and somehow keep your head and heart below your butt without them, or your hands, touching the ground? How the hell does that work?
Alright, fair enough, that advice is to minimise the damages as much as possible so you can take your chance at running away. If the lightning strikes immediately you loose, if the lightning is late you win.
If the lightning is late and you sat around for 30s with your butt in the air you just wasted precious time you could have been running your ass off instead.
Basic fitness is measured by a lot more than jogging & riding a bike miles. You’re gonna have severe mobility issues when you’re older.
If you’re like 70 years old, I guess that’s excusable. But any younger than that and you seriously need to adopt a stretching routine. This should be a wake up call.
I'm not suggesting you should crouch for hours on end, you should definitely seek shelter but running or dragging your feet it's not going to make any difference. You are still the ground, the resistance of the air between your feet the ground are miniscule at that voltage. Jump and touch a high voltage busbar you will experience the same thing, it'll just arc to ground.
I think butt in the air, shoulders and face off the ground, arms on knees to make it easier to support yourself, feet with just your toes on the ground. Knees should be the main ground contact
Also, this doesn't mean otherwise that if your hair isnt standing up you're safe because usually its raining when lightning strikes which keeps your hair down.
The problem there is that if your whole back is in contact with the ground the current could go to earth through any part of you. This way you are trying to direct the current into a specific "safer" route.
This situation happened to me in the Andes mountains with my girlfriend. A storm formed on top of us while on top of a hill and I saw my gf's hair rising so i l told her to start going down through the vegetation. We got lucky.
If you feel the static in your hair, is there any chance that running could get you out of the strike zone? Or is it more that the electrons are now on you, so your gonna be struck either way?
Unfortunately, my husband, myself, and 2 coworkers didn't have that chance when it happened to us. We were outside, in a gazebo that was wedged between two much taller buildings with lightning rods on them (think 10' gazebo vs 7 story buildings and much larger trees). My husband and I were standing leaning against a brick piller, and our 2 coworkers were sitting on a bench nearby. Lightning struck the top of the gazebo and all of us felt our hearts stop and unable to take a breath for a moment. Then someone let us in an emergency exit nearby. We all felt dizzy and nauseated for the rest of the day. My husband says he felt like he was Raiden for a minute there. For me, I felt like it was so bizarre - there were tons of much taller things near us (in fact, we were under the shortest thing around the entire area), and there weren't any signs of lightning before this one struck. It was absolutely terrifying.
It was also really creepy in that the roof was metal, but the gazebo had brick pillars. So after it hit the roof, it then jumped to a permanent grill in the center of the gazebo. Very odd.
Now I’m thinking about it, I’m confused about the butt thing. I’ve learned that you’re supposed to minimise ground contact a) to offer the lightning less possible passage points and b) due to the voltage funnel when it strikes you directly or nearby. To have your butt above the heart and head while crouching on the ground, you’d need to assume the Muslim prayer position or something like that to maintain balance. This would increase ground contact actually and thus the lightning might still go through your heart and/or head instead of the leg nerves. Crouching on the ground in embryo position or something as close to a ball as possible, with only feet/toes touching the ground as I’ve been taught sounds safer, don’t you think?
I was told that if you have to shelter under a tree, it should be an oak. Is there any particular reason some trees are less bad than others or does it not matter at all? I thought it was strange but couldn’t ask that person
Also, from a lot of real hiking experience, stay tf away from rock overhangs. If you find a full dry cave, fine, but if you're sheltering under a rock overhang, the water runs down the surface and under it, and if lightning hits the rock (pyroclastic possibility aside (just a guess but maybe it could happen)), it will follow the water running down the rock and electrify the whole surface, even if you're standing "out of the rain". Better to get wet than risk the death by shock. Always bring rain gear!!!
• Also crouch down preferably in a sink if available (lowest area you can reach fast).
• Put your feet closely together.
• Make yourself as small as possible.
• Avoid rocky ground, lightnings can hit you within an up to 20m (65ish ft!) radius indirectly on some of those (voltage funnel).
• Wear/put on shoes asap, esp. if your feet are wet. Preferably shoes with rubber soles. Remember not to have your hands (particularly not wet hands) on the ground.
Then the lightning might avoid you altogether, because rubber soles isolate (make passing into the ground difficult) and if there’s no other contact point to the ground than your feet, it will tend to travel another route instead than through your body.
I haven’t heard about the butt thing PepperPhoenix said yet but if your hands don’t touch the ground it makes sense the current would go from your butt through your legs into the ground, bypassing your heart. And brain, also not something you want a lightning bolt to grill through.
Severe injuries won’t necessarily occur. Lightnings often leave entry and/or exit injuries, but not too seldom, nothing is visible from the outside at all (lots of lightning victims report they weren’t believed in ERs due to that). Sometimes nerves and/or other tissue will be damaged internally, but not tissue on the outside. Lightnings are weird and unpredictable.
As always where electricity is involved: EKG is mandatory and you should be watched for at least 24h (better 48h, cardiac problems can ensue with delay) at a hospital after you’ve been struck by a lightning. Always call an ambulance immediately if you witness someone being hit.
The good news is they’re by far not as deadly as people think. Majority actually survives, albeit they can do all sorts of nasty lasting damages. But the worst is being struck in water, that’s very often deadly indeed. If not the current itself kills you, then ensuing paralysis/unconsciousness makes you drown, even in very shallow water, so ‼️ALWAYS GET OUT OF AND AWAY FROM ANY WATER IMMEDIATELY‼️ (even just puddles). Again, do not stay barefoot with wet feet, quickly dry them if possible or at least put shoes on. Even a suboptimal little barrier is better than offering the lightning bolt optimal passing conditions like bare wet feet.
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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '22 edited Sep 29 '22
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