Reborn

cool.............NOT....

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Psalms 144:1
Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
Senior Instructor for Tactical and Defensive of Texas
CHL INSTRUCTOR
Retired LEO
NRA member
TCHA member

Sky Pilot

Lightning killed my wife's grandfather.
Lightning hit a rally at the county fairgrounds with multiple casualties.
I have seen what lightning does to a good oak tree.
No wish to have that done to my long tall carcass.

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Center Township Combat Pistol League

Double Naught Spy

Yes, it is possible, but not because of the metal rod. Plus, you need not be the tallest thing around to be struck.

It does not matter if you are wet or your feet are on the ground or not for lightning to strike you.

The reason why lightning rods are made of metal is because they are attached to a wire that is then run to the ground. The metal in the rod and wire offer less resistance than the structure being protected and hence act to channel the strike along the wire to the ground instead of into the structure.

Since the reference was made to golfers, note that most are not struck directly, but via energy traveling through the ground.

I can't find an English version of this video, but it is of a soccer game where lighting struck the ground (near the corner of the field) and did not strike the highest object, did not strike metal, yet injured many.

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Considering yourself to be defenseless is the first administrative step to becoming a victim.

JonInNY

Hey RamRod, can I assume that's a photo of you as a child, playing with the outlet?

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"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
-- William Ernest Henley: Invictus

David in FL

Not true.........even God can't hit a 1 iron!

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"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

Musketeer

I'll second the "Shooters are smarter than golfers" statement. The fact that it is a sport where it is already possibly to easily kill someone keeps the possibility of death a little more forward in our minds.

Don't mess with lightening. I lived in Daytona Beach for 5 years. One tourist was struck in just an inch of standing water at the beach with a bolt form a storm a distance away. Hit the water, skipped across and went through him. Imagine a Bratwurst left on the grill too long that burns and cracks open... Needless to say it was a fatality and in front of his kids.

At the same time it can get you ANYWHERE. My boss at the pizza place I worked at while in school was struck sitting on the toilet inside a house. Came through the window and blasted him then followed the plumbing to ground (or the other way around actually). It nearly killed him. Years later he was struck a second time taking out the garbage but only stunned... He doesn't like lightening and you could not catch him outside or near an open window when there was even a rumble in the sky after that.

NCHornet

My son was hit by lightning at 5 years old, it hit a nearby tree and came off the tree and hit him in the arm and came out his foot. You don't have to have a metal object in your hand for lightning to hit you. I praise God he was okay!!

NCH

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Carry On!!
NCHornet

Musketeer

I'm glad he was alright! Rather than helping him survive not striking him in the first place would have been nice...

Bottom line is you can never 100% prevent a lightening strike but you can certainly stack the odds in your favor. I know of no trap shooters hit by lightening but if I saw a story on one the first thing I would as would be "What type of moron stands out there with a steel bar on an open field in a thunderstorm?"

Double Naught Spy

YouTube - Lightning strike on football field

Sorry I didn't include this link. The strike is just right of the yellow sign on the upper left of the screen at about 2 seconds into the video. You see a cloud of debris/smoke rise up from the strike.

The strike is not of the highest item and not on metal.

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Considering yourself to be defenseless is the first administrative step to becoming a victim.

Ram Rod

Well, it's a close substitute. I actually pulled our family Christmas tree light cord out of the wall outlet when I was a child...just far enough I could see the progs exposed and the tree lights still on....I dropped a quarter directly onto the prongs and poof! I had a quarter with two gold spots on it! Needless to say, the lights remained lit after the incident, and it left a smoke mark on the wall above the wall plate. I picked the quarter up while it was still warm. I'm an electrician and have been for 20 years. Electricity has always interested me. I've done extensive reading on the subject of lightning..every scientific explanation and research I could get ahold of since the late 70's. Several years ago, I was part of a contract team that did lightning protection requirements on a large multi-level high school building project and was exposed to even more science and engineering on the subject of lightning and how it works in the open and around structures. Next to the carbon/oxygen transfer through green plants, the sun's radiation, and rain....I think lightning is one of the most important natural occurrences that give earth the environmental balance needed to sustain life. The potential for a lightning strike happens on the earth's surface....under our feet. Any time we are in the path we are subject to be struck whether we are holding a metal object or not. Whether holding a metal object makes one more susceptible to a strike is still conjecture. Staying inside a structure is still not a 100% guarantee to avoid a strike, it just lowers the odds. Ground strikes are rare as there are usually objects available that are taller and more readily available to become a conduit from the ground. Lightning actually starts at the ground and builds potential on it's way upward to meet the oppositely charged atoms and their electrons in the clouds. The actual lightning strike we see is the resulting heat from that transfer of energy back from the sky downward and we see it in visible light. Golfers and people out in the open during a thunderstorm could be compared to Glocks and KB's. It's simply a numbers game. Lightning strikes have been know to happen many miles away from thunderstorms, and some have been recorded on crisp, clear, cloudless days.
http://www.sircuit.com/online_resour...ptember-06.pdf
HowStuffWorks "Types of Strikes and Types of Lightning"
HowStuffWorks "Lightning Safety"
HowStuffWorks "Can I get struck by lightning when I'm indoors?"
Howstuffworks
HowStuffWorks "Step Leaders"

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RamRod-----sans remords