Replicated from the GGA EZBoard:

AllenLacy
Magnificent Poster
(8/2/02 1:44:23 pm)
Be careful during a thunder storm.

I assume that some of you read the Deadly lightning ends mountain stroll. But since the AJC tends to move articles to their pay area I thought I would put some of it here.


Quote:
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Suddenly, there was a loud crack of thunder and flash of lightning. Ronald Hayes came around the bend of a trail to find his wife on the ground, a small patch of blood on her head. He shook his wife's shoulders gently, over and over again, pleading with her to wake up.

....

Pamela Hayes, a 49-year-old construction coordinator for AT&T, had been struck and killed by lightning. A lightning bolt had somehow found its way through a thick forest, hitting nothing else but her.

"There were no trees damaged, no rocks scarred, nothing," said Kennesaw Mountain's Chief Ranger Lloyd Morris.
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What is disconcerting is the sentence "A lightning bolt had somehow found its way through a thick forest, hitting nothing else but her."

Normally I assume that if I am in a forest not under the tallest tree I should be reasonably safe.

CODITO ERGO SUM

Edited by: AllenLacy at: 8/2/02 1:48:00 pm

Editor's note - the AJC link was not included because it no longer points to the referenced article.

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Da Rebel
Magnificent Poster
(8/4/02 7:25:26 pm)
Re: Be careful during a thunder storm.

That is chilling, but not unknown.

I was in my woods in Alabama a few weeks ago and noticed a crater in the firebreak. Looked like someone had set off a stick of dynamite or something similar. When I looked closer, I noticed a scorch mark running along the ground about 25 feet to a tree that had obvious lightning damage.

Apparently, the lightning hit the tree, ran through a root, and exploded upwards! Kinda wish I could have been there to see it, but glad I wasn't.


"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain