According to National Weather Service study, 82% of people killed by lightning are male....Take note that if your hair begins to stand on end, you are in immediate danger
No place outside is safe near a thunderstorm!
Lightning can strike without rain actually falling...
It has frequently been observed during hurricanes, snow storms, volcanic eruptions, huge forest fires, and nuclear detonations. Even the launch of the space shuttle is capable of creating a thunderbolt.
Surviving Lightning Storms and Strikes
1. Ideally, safety should be sought inside a building where telephones or television are not being used. But Stay Away From telephones, electrical appliances, and plumbing. Don’t watch lightning from windows or doorways. Inner rooms are generally safer.
2. Should you be outdoors in open terrain with no possibility of shelter, avoid making yourself the tallest object or standing near to the tallest object as that is what lightning will be drawn toward.
3. Seek refuge instead in a cluster of small trees and distance yourself from people should anyone be with you, keeping several yards between one another.
4. If you are alone and exposed, it is best to crouch down as low to the ground as you can get while still keeping your hands off the ground, but pressing your feet as close together as possible.
The reason for this is that having legs in different locations creates potential difference and allows current to flow throughout your body much like terminals on a battery. This is why cows usually die in lightning storms, because it is easy for them to experience a lethal jolt due to the placement of their legs/the potential difference created by that placement and the electricity each leg can conduct. The lower the potential difference, the less current that can flow, and the more likelihood that you will survive a lightning strike.
5. False notion also persists that a person within a vehicle is totally protected from the dangers of lightning. Bolts of lightning can flatten tires, shatter glass, or shred a convertible top. The potency of the strike often ignites the vehicle, causing it to become completely engulfed in flames.
Lightning strikes are not always fatal, but up to 80% of survivors sustaining long-term injuries, including blindness, deafness and irreversible brain damage. Those who suffer a direct strike and are resuscitated, typically expire within days. The internal organs of the victim, particularly the heart and kidneys, are in many cases severely damaged by the electrical jolt.
In the United States, the average annual death toll from lightning is 51 deaths per year
Information and Image credit: http://www.preparedsociety.com/Surviving-Lightning-Storms-and-Strikes.html; http://io9.com/new-statistics-on-lightning-deaths-in-the-u-s-reveal-w-560760736
