"What happens really depends on how much force you take, whether directly or indirectly," he said. A direct lightning strike is when the bolt of lightning comes down from the sky directly into a person's body. An indirect strike occurs when the person catches the shock from a secondary source, like when standing under a tree or a pavilion.
The effects on the body can vary. Eyesight or hearing may be adversely affected, Claypool said, due to the loud clap of the thunder and the bright flash from the lightning. A person could be temporarily blinded or rupture an eardrum.
Additionally, the heart could go into cardiac arrest. If a person is unresponsive after being struck, it's urgent they get CPR immediately. Often, the lightning can cause respiratory arrest, and the impacted person can have an oxygen-related injury from not breathing.
"So even if it doesn't injure you directly, it can have long-term effects from those injuries," he said. Outside of internal injuries, the heat could cause serious burns through the body, the doctor said. Some burns can look like Lichtenberg figures, or lines.
Lichtenberg lines are long, intricate, wavy burns that can appear on someone temporarily after receiving a massive electric shock. "They don't really stick around. They're these fernlike, superficial burns of the skin," said Claypool. There could be long-lasting effects on the brain as well, including potential memory loss, seizures or muscle spasms. "There's really nothing unique, long term, from lightning. You can have these things from any kind of brain injury," said Claypool.
Lightning is a discharge of static electricity that occurs when there is an imbalance in the electrical charge between the cloud and the earth's surface. Put very simply, it is a giant electric spark in the sky - a very powerful one. It can stop a person's heart and cook their internal organs.
On average three people die in the UK each year from lightning strikes, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa). In the US, deaths have been in decline but are still in the region of 30 a year.
More than 85% of those killed are male.In the UK, up to 60 people every year get struck and survive, but it's estimated that more than three-quarters of them suffer some form of permanent disability. So what is life like after being struck by lightning? Eric Brocklebank, then 64, was struck on 9 June 2009 as he boiled sausages for a group of cadets at an event at RAF Digby. He had just removed a metal barbecuing prong from the water and was holding it in the air when the strike happened.
"A bolt of lightning came straight through the gap in the tent. It hit the fork I was holding. That melted into my hand."With lightning strike victims you can sometimes guess at the path of the electricity because of the formation of a Lichtenberg figure. Sometimes known as "lightning tree" or "lightning flower", these intricate, fern-like patterns are caused by capillaries bursting.
In Brocklebank's case, the lightning first caused a small wound in his wrist. "Then it went down the right side of my body, across my hips and down through my left and right legs. It blew three holes in my right foot and two holes in my left foot."
He was lucky to be surrounded by people who were able to help. "As luck had it, all of the cadets knew CPR. One of the first people down there was my son. The first responders then worked on me for 20 minutes." More than three-quarters of lightning survivors suffer some form of permanent disability. For Brocklebank, the consequences, four years after the strike, are both physical and mental.
A lightning bolt can heat the surrounding air to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,760 degrees Celsius) – which is five times hotter than the sun – and can contain up to 1 billion volts of electricity. It’s terrifying to imagine what this amount of energy could do to a human.
When it enters your body, it short-circuits the small electrical signals that run the heart, lungs, and nervous system. This can lead to cardiac arrest, seizures, brain injury, spinal cord damage, and amnesia. The blistering heat, light, and electricity can also damage your eyes. For example, it can bore holes in your retina and cause cataracts, a clouding of the lenses. Unfortunately for men, lightning can also induce impotence and decrease libido in general.
As the lightning moves toward the surface of the body, it can force red blood cells out of your capillaries, into your epidermis. Like a bruise. These scars are the earlier mentioned Lichtenberg figures. The insane temperatures can also heat up any metal you’re wearing, causing third-degree burns. Or rapidly vaporize the sweat or rain on your skin. Sometimes, this steam explosion even blows off people’s clothes or shoes, leaving them nearly naked.
Much to the chagrin of the canine population of the country, we have been hit with thunder and lightning, frightening dogs everywhere. But do we have anything to worry about when the lightning strikes? Just how likely is it that you could be struck by a fork of lightning? Well, not very likely, but it does happen to a few people in the UK every year.
Different sources actually vary pretty wildly on how likely you are to be hit by lightning, with David Hand’s book The Improbability Principle suggesting it is 300,000/1. However, the BMJ have suggested that it is actually far less likely and it is a 10,000,000/1 shot that you will be struck by lightning.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents states that ’30-60 people are struck by lightning each year in Britain, and on average, 3 (5-10%) of these strikes are fatal.’ The last population estimate for the UK from the Office for National Statistics was 65,648,100, so if 60 people are hit by lightning every year then that is one in every 1,094,135 people.
If it is the lower end of the spectrum and 30 people are hit by lightning each year then that is one in every 2,188 270 people. However you look at it, it is very unlikely, the BMJ rates it as the same likelihood as being killed as a result of a nuclear power accident.
According to the The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, 80% of lightning strike victims are male. They also provide a list of people most at risk, which is basically just people who are doing things outside, including: golfers, rock climbers, campers and construction workers.
