Close encounters with Lightning who has had them

Ren the devils trailboss

Ren the devils trailboss

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Feb 27, 2001
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Posted on yahoo today. Five deaths from lightning strikes in the last week
click here

Who has had close encounters. If I did not know better ( and maybe I dont ) but I would swear that lightning is attracted to me. I have had two close calls and many near by strikes. Lightning scares the bjebers out of me.

Close call number one was when we lived in our old house about 15 years ago. In the middle of the night a big storm was rolling in and our dog was outside. I got out of bed and went downstairs and walked out onto our patio. Our dog was cowering under our big maple tree. I picked up the pooch and took three steps back to the house and WHAM!! lightning hit the tree. Fortunate for me I was not BBQ'd as the entire tree bucked out of the ground and I was tossed 10 feet into a flower garden. I was completely dazed and covered in mud and plant debris. The power of that hit fried every electric appliance in our house and blew our door bell off the house we found it across the street. It is amazing there was not a fire.

Second close call was when I was trying ( key emphasis on the word trying) to learn how to golf. We were about as far out from the club house as one can get when a storm began to brew. Of course you try and get back to the club house but the lightning started falling. We lay in a bunker as this confligration hit. I swear we were in a war. There were probably ten lightning strikes in the trees surrounding the fairway within a hundred meters of where we were. We hugged so close to the sand I thought I was a starfish..

I have witnessed probably at least 30 strikes from less than 100 yards away. Fence posts, trees, flag poles. One last week fried a pole barn while I was in my car. It scared the living daylights out of me...

what are your stories??
 
Ren the devils trailboss said:
Posted on yahoo today. Five deaths from lightning strikes in the last week
click here

Who has had close encounters. If I did not know better ( and maybe I dont ) but I would swear that lightning is attracted to me. I have had two close calls and many near by strikes. Lightning scares the bjebers out of me.

Close call number one was when we lived in our old house about 15 years ago. In the middle of the night a big storm was rolling in and our dog was outside. I got out of bed and went downstairs and walked out onto our patio. Our dog was cowering under our big maple tree. I picked up the pooch and took three steps back to the house and WHAM!! lightning hit the tree. Fortunate for me I was not BBQ'd as the entire tree bucked out of the ground and I was tossed 10 feet into a flower garden. I was completely dazed and covered in mud and plant debris. The power of that hit fried every electric appliance in our house and blew our door bell off the house we found it across the street. It is amazing there was not a fire.

Second close call was when I was trying ( key emphasis on the word trying) to learn how to golf. We were about as far out from the club house as one can get when a storm began to brew. Of course you try and get back to the club house but the lightning started falling. We lay in a bunker as this confligration hit. I swear we were in a war. There were probably ten lightning strikes in the trees surrounding the fairway within a hundred meters of where we were. We hugged so close to the sand I thought I was a starfish..

I have witnessed probably at least 30 strikes from less than 100 yards away. Fence posts, trees, flag poles. One last week fried a pole barn while I was in my car. It scared the living daylights out of me...

what are your stories??
Click to expand...

Sounds like you might want to rethink that going to church thing... :)
 
Back in high school I got stuck under a shelter at a state park when a storm hit. Closest lightning was probably 50 yards away, I could hear the buzzing before the strike. It was awesome!
 
I've had my car hit three times, while driving. Well, I should say, I've had two different cars hit.

1) First time, going over an overpass above a railyard. Lightning hit the hood, gauges went crazy, engine died, but nothing else. Coasted to the bottom, restarted my car and went home. ('77 Buick LeSabre)

2) Going over another overpass. This time, it left a 6" diameter scorch-mark on my hood, fried my A/C, but nothing more. After a few hundred dollars' repair work, good as new. (the Buick, again)

3) Driving through a flooded intersection with water standing over the mid-point on my wheels (i.e., the undercarriage is IN the water). Lightning struck the roof of my car, and the world went violet-white, then black. Came to with water in the floor of my car, which wouldn't even turn over. Got out of the car and stumbled up the hill the last hundred yards or so to my house. I couldn't make my hands work to operate the key and doorknob, so I just pounded on the door until my roomate came by, opened the door, and I saw the ground come up, very, very fast. I lay there like a fish out of water for a while, as the same roomate walked over me several times, cooking and then eating his dinner. At one point, he came by, knelt down, and felt my neck for a pulse. Apparently satisfied, he wandered off again, and I heard the television. Mind you, the back door is still open at this point, with rain pouring in after me. Finally, after what felt like hours, I mustered the strength to drag myself to my room and collapse beside my bed. I woke up in the morning, though, feeling surprisingly good. Very refreshed.
I went in search of my roomate, and proceeded to ask him what it was about a person lying, helpless in the doorway that said to him, "Go ahead and finish your macaroni...it's all good?!?" He replied, "Man, I thought you were just screwing around. I wasn't going to give you the satisfaction." As I slowly approached full boil, and went through all the colours of the spectrum, he continued, "Hey, I checked...you had a pulse. What's the big deal?" ('86 Oldsmobile Cutlass)

Now, at least he was decent enough to come with me down to my car and help push it up the hill to the house. The lightning had fried anything and everything electrical, even melting some of the wiring harness. The distributor was melted and deformed, and the battery looked like someone had hit it with a LAW rocket. It took me MONTHS to get that damned thing running again. To this day, though, I get a little apprehensive when I drive in big storms.

:eek:
 
Lightning once struck a tree about 15 feet from where a friend and I were talking, we looked at the tree, looked at each other, shook hands, and he went home and I went back into the bar I was working in at the time. People came running out of the other shops on the block to see what had happened...
 
I've had only one,

I was talking to a company rep while going out the back door of my store...and
then a deafening BOOM, and everything went a blinding electric blue. Lightning had hit a highway light pole about 150' away. Similar to what DaveH said, there was a bizzare buzzing/crackling sound the instant before the flash, although light travels a heck of lot faster than sound, so I am not sure which came first. There was a feeling almost as if a shockwave had hit us, pretty cool really. Wasn't even raining at the time, and it looked like the storm was still a few minutes away.

Bill
 
Let me start by saying that I love thunderstorms and I love watching lightning, but I'm not going outside in it...

Probably close to 20 years ago, my friend Josh and I were playing on the front porch of my house. I remember my dad was still at work, and my mom was fixing dinner, so it was probably 5:30pm or so. Hot afternoon, but plesant and just a bit overcast, but no dark storm clouds anywhere around.

Out of nowhere the entire world turned bright blue. So bright that blue was all you could see, then what sounded like a gun shot going off in my ear. I bolted for the door and slammed it in Josh's face. Oddly enough, instead of opening the door and coming in after me, he knocked.

Everyone in the house's eyes were wide as dinner plates and I don't think I've ever been so startled in my life. It wasn't really scary, looking back on it, but seeing blue and then having a cannon go off in your ear is startling at the very least.

The blast was the lightning hitting a pine tree in the back yard about 45 feet up the trunk and splitting it. It stayed where it was though and we had it cut down the next day.

No thunder followed the lightning, and there wasn't as much as another bolt of lightning or rumble of thunder the rest of the night. Of course, lightning can strike far away from any thunder.

A few years ago I was at work and my girlfriend at the time was at home. We were having a particularly nasty line of storms that week and she was always a little skiddish during storms. She called me at work freaking out that she was sitting on the couch reading and heard a pop and everything in the house buzzed and the lights went out.

Well great, I thought, now I have to buy new appliances. But no, it only killed my microwave which I'd needed to replace anyway.
 
Who nose? ... I mean, who knows? :)

Lightning Strike Leaves Through Woman's Nose Ring

A 21-year-old Antrim, N.H. woman is recovering after being struck by lightning Wednesday night. The bolt hit her feet and came out through her nose ring.

Jessica Lafreniere was hit while she was walking through her family's garage.

"She had walked into the garage to go outside to turn off the faucet. The light came in through the garage and hit her," Jessica's mother, Danielle Taylor told WBZ.

"It was like a red flash that came from her feet and she was thrown into my arms. She was blue and purple, and stiff as a board."

"When you hear it, it's unbelieveable, but it's true."
Click to expand...
 
When I was in Navy boot camp at Orlando, FL in the summer of '76 they warned us that lightning storms down there were vicious. Walking back to the barracks from the chow hall, I heard a rally loud crack and felt a flash of heat that made my skin tingle. I looked to my right, and the grass was smoking about 15 feet away. I couldn't believe it. There were three story buildings with external steel staircases and lightning rods all around, and the lightning hit the ground instead.
 
I was lying on my left side when one of the worst thunderstorms I've encountered was going on. A bolt of lightning hit so close to my house that all the hairs on the right side of my body were standing on end. We think it hit a tree, but there were no scorch marks.
 
About 10 years ago I was on a cross state bicycle ride in Missouri, something similar to RAGBRAI. We spent a night in Sedalia, MO at the fairgrounds. That morning when I got up it was very nasty looking and there was lots of thunder going on. Several people had already packed up and were under a big shelter not far away, talking and laughing. I had most of my stuff packed and was getting ready to take the tent down when it started to rain a bit, so I thought I'd wait and see if it blew over rather than pack up a wet tent. I was sitting inside the tent when suddenly there was a huge popping sound and then complete silence. That was followed by lots of expletives from the people that were camped next to me, as well as the crowd under the shelter becoming quite noisy. I crawled out of the tent to find a small tree halfway between my tent and theirs had been struck by lightning and the bark was peeled completely off of the tree. They had decided to beat the storm and were in the process of taking their tent down at the time. Two of them had singed hair on their legs and arms, but that was the extent of any damage. The tree was 10-15 ft from my tent and probably a few feet closer to their's.

What I found really interesting is that there was a line of small trees in the camping area and most of them had one or more bicycles leaning up against them. The tree that was hit didn't have one touching it.
 
this did not happen to me but a friend of mine when he was a kid. He was sitting at silver lake in Michigan which is a HUGE lake. He was on one end of the lake watching a bit T storm approaching. He was sitting on the dock with his feet in the water when he tells me lightning struck the lake about a mile away and he got a very big shock from the water...it did not hurt him but man he got his feet out of the water fast...
 
Lightening can be very intense around here, as I am situated in one of the higher parts of the township. I have installed a surge protector on my electrical pannel, and the electricity utility installed one on the poll next to the house when it was first wired. Other than a few blown fuses during storms, the system has worked well over the years.

On more than one occassion the house has been hit by lightening. It all happens at once, the sky turns from night to day, and at the same time it sounds like someone striking the wall of the house with a hammer followed instantaniously by the crack and boom of thunder. Then its all over until the next flash.

There was the time when the storm came up and I rushed back to the boat launch in the canoe at Sunday lake. The lightening came up fast as the black cloud closed in.

I barely had the canoe out of the water and onto the rack of the truck when the big stike hit a tree only 200 feet from me. The brightness of the lightning flash, had flashed my eyes and left an imprint of the bolt temporarily in my vision. I jumped into the truck and drove away from the lake before tying down the canoe, and getting out of there and home.

There was a particularly punishing storm two years ago while out at the cabin. I remember well that the weather forecast was going to be good, and I left the house with the windows open. In the little cabin a storm came up in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn't much at first, just some rolling thunder.

Then the big ones started striking down. The sky turned to day with lightening and not much rain. I could here it sizzling, and expected the TV and electrical system that is run by generator and solar to explode. I had the power off, and the whole while it sounded like war outside. It went on and on for about 2 hours before it finally quit. Then it became so hot and muggy making it hard to breath, and the bugs were bad especially the no-see-ems.

I began to wonder, what I had done to deserve this, and knowing that the windows were open back at home (house was okay). In the morning the big pine only 100 feet from the cabin had been blown up by lightening. It was a storm to remember.
 
When I was 8 my dad was replacing a pane in a window of our house and worked as a thunderstorm was gathering strength. He was struck by a bolt as he leaned out to scrape putty. It blew his shoes off and severely burned his wrist on which he wore a metal watchband. His arm was paralyzed for a week or more. I'm amazed at the numbers killed each year by lightning strikes, but even more amazed at the numbers that survive!
 
This is nothing very dramatic, but... When I was younger, I was working underneath my car, replacing a radiator hose. The sky overhead was clear, with a storm coming on the horizon. When the thunder started, I was laying on the ground, and could feel little shocks across my forearms where they touched the car. It only took one or two of those before I decided to let that job wait awhile.
 
Who posted this? "aah @#@# I hate Christians." I might think twice before standing next to you in a storm!!!!!! zman308 unrepentant sinner
 
I had my police car struck some years back, one of those Ford Taurus police models.
Killed it quite dead...Fried all the internal computers. I hardly noticed a thing, and the radio kept playing...

When I was in the army in Germany, thunderstorms were quite rare. We had a sudden one come up while we were out in the field one day, and a radio operator was thrown across a tent when lightning hit the "commo" wire for his field telephone. (this was back in the 60s)
A bolt hit a pine tree perhaps 20 yards from me, splitting it down the middle. Pretty scary. Loud, too.
 
mwerner said:
When I was in the army in Germany, ... (this was back in the 60s)...
Click to expand...
When I was in the Air Force in Germany, ... (this was back in the 60s)... we used to have a few good jokes about the Army but I'd hate to have you fried like that!
 
I was playing paintball one day with a bunch of guys out in the woods, when it started raining. Everyone stayed hidden (I'm guessing we all thought it would pass), then it started pooring! A lightning bolt hit a tree about 50 yards from me, the tree split and crashed down! Everybody popped out of hiding and we took off. It scared the dickens out of all of us! I don't think that we played in the rain again.
 
The monsoon season here (right now) can bring some serious lightning, and I'm surprised there aren't people killed every day by it. Probably because when there's lightning in the area, there ain't nobody outside, because it's raining like a hurricane (sometimes with hail). I've seen some pretty close lightning strikes; one hit a tree right across the street from me, as I was standing under a store awning. Scared the feces right out of me, and set off car alarms around the whole block (for those that know Tucson, I was at Casa Video on Speedway, and the tree was by that flower shop across the street).

The monsoon rains do seem to kill people every year, but it's always people getting washed away. The washes (a dry river/canal that channels water when it rains) are deadly. Last year a couple people were killed swimming at Sabino Canyon; rain up north at higher elevation caused a flash flood. That same year, somebody was crossing a bridge over a wash in an SUV and a wall of water hit (higher than the bridge) and washed him away, killing him.
 
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