Unusual way to die while biking -

[AnotherLee]

MADRAS, Ore. (AP) — Central Oregon authorities say a motorcyclist who stopped under a tree to get out of the rain was killed when lightning struck the tree.

 

KTVZ -TV reports a couple were riding on U.S. 97 northeast of Madras Sunday afternoon when the storm came up.

 

Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins says 50-year-old Bret Hemenway of Madras was killed, and his wife, 49-year-old Connie Hemenway, was taken to the hospital. Her condition was unknown.

 

According to the sheriff’s office, Connie told emergency dispatchers that while under the tree, she saw a blue light and felt pain in her left arm while being blown backwards. She then looked over at her husband and saw that he was not moving. She was able to use her right arm to call 911.

 

They were at the junction of Highway 97 and Oregon 293.

 

I might have done the same thing! Best advice if you get caught in a lightening storm on a golf course is to lie down on the cold, soaking wet ground in the downpour. Counterintuitive from my perspective.

 

Don't know what this couple might have done differently. Look for an underpass? Look for a structure?

[Firefight911]

Never seek refuge under anything that sticks up out of the ground in a lightning storm, thunder storm, or storm. Go indoors, under an overpass, etc. but never pick a tree.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Best advice if you get caught in a lightening storm on a golf course is to lie down on the cold, soaking wet ground in the downpour. Counterintuitive from my perspective.

 

Lying down is not the best thing. If lighning hits something nearby, the current spreads out radially in the ground and causes a voltage gradient - high voltage at the strike point, decreasing voltage farther away (called step voltage). If your head or feet are pointed straight toward the strike point, you may experience a difference in voltage between your head and feet that can cause current to pass through your body.

 

The same is true if you're standing with your feet apart. Besides, if you're standing, you're making yourself taller.

 

What to do? The advice I've heard in the past was to squat (making yourself as short as possible) with your feet together and your ankles touching. Having your feet together minimizes any step voltage between them, and keeping your ankles in contact with each other provides a path for current to travel between them without having to pass through your abdomen.

 

And then I read this article, which says that old advice hasn't proven helpful:

 

The old recommendation of crouching down into a “lightning squat”—reducing oneself to the size of a child—has changed after not proving to provide much safety.

 

As it turns out, NOAA does still advise using this posture, but only if you know you're about to be hit. How do you know? You feel tingly all over and your hair looks like this:

 

 

These guys were hit just after this picture was taken.

 

That actually happened to me back in 2000. Ex-GF and I were riding through Rocky Mountain National Park. We parked at a trailhead, walked a half a mile, and climbed a pile of rocks that made us the highest thing for maybe ten miles in any direction. Dark clouds on the horizon. GF posed for a picture, complained that her hair wouldn't behave; I figured it was just the wind, until I started climbing off of the rock and felt/heard my hair crackle. Then everything clicked, and I said uh-oh, we have to get down NOW. The problem? Getting down required walking about 1/3 of a mile across a treeless barren before the trail made its brief, steep descent to the parking area. What to do, stay near this giant pile of rock, or put ourselves out in the open for a couple of minutes? We went for it. Along the way, 8-foot wooden poles next to the trail (as snow markers) were buzzing and crackling. We made it back to the parking lot without incident, but that was among the scariest few minutes of my life.

[Kathy R]

See Mitch. You do need to grow out your hair. It's a safety device.

 

This thread is a good reminder. I am very lucky to have never turned to toast.

[Lighthiker90]

The difference in voltage can be between your feet when walking normally. It was recommended by an emergency responder to put both feet together and hop away from the voltage source. This is usually a downed power line, but it still applies.

 

I think they may have been better of riding through it. The tires should insulate you like a car providing no path to ground.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

I think they may have been better of riding through it. The tires should insulate you like a car providing no path to ground.

 

Lightning travels for miles through open air; a quarter-inch of rubber isn't going offer any significant resistance against that kind of voltage potential.

 

Cars offer some protection because they surround you with a conductive metal cage. The body and frame offer a low-resistance path from the top of the car to the bottom, directing the current around you. Cars and bikes do still get hit. This guy was struck and killed near Denver in 2006, while many of us were at the UnRally in Gunnison.

[Lighthiker90]

Agreed, but lightning is traveling miles through air with low resistance while seeking a path to ground. Higher resistance or a easier path to ground will divert it.

[NCStephen]

Best advice if you get caught in a lightening storm on a golf course is to lie down on the cold, soaking wet ground in the downpour. Counterintuitive from my perspective.

 

 

What I heard to do in this situation is to get out a 1 iron and hold it straight over your head pointing up to the heavens. Why? Because even God can't hit a 1 iron.

 

Attributed to interview years ago with Lee Travino.

[AnotherLee]

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Agreed, but lightning is traveling miles through air with low resistance while seeking a path to ground. Higher resistance or a easier path to ground will divert it.

 

"Miles of air" has lots of resistance. Ever wonder why high-voltage wires are insulated by large air gaps instead of a quarter-inch of rubber?

 

Any resistance provided by the tires just means that the lightning will travel through the body of the car and then arc around the tire to ground.

 

Heck, airplanes in flight are isolated from the ground by huge air gaps, and they still get hit by lightning.

 

Read the available literature on lightning safety; it will tell you that cars can and do get hit from time to time.

[eddd]

This happened in southern Utah.

 

link

[Lighthiker90]

"Miles of air" has lots of resistance. Ever wonder why high-voltage wires are insulated by large air gaps instead of a quarter-inch of rubber?

 

Any resistance provided by the tires just means that the lightning will travel through the body of the car and then arc around the tire to ground.

 

Heck, airplanes in flight are isolated from the ground by huge air gaps, and they still get hit by lightning.

 

Read the available literature on lightning safety; it will tell you that cars can and do get hit from time to time.

 

I can't disagree too much. It would be a bad day to be struck regardless. I will argue that it is the arc around not the direct path to ground that causes the damage. I don't have data tables in front of me for exact values, but I am sure the resistance of a 1/4 inch of rubber is more significant than the resistance of a 1/4 of air. You may get hit and then the voltage will arc to the ground due to it's proximity. Your proximity to that arc can make for a bad day. Airplanes frequently get hit by lightning. No damage results most of the time. Why? No path to ground and it's too far to arc to ground.

[SageRider]

Lightning does not exist without a massive difference in electrical potential between two spots (not necessarily to ground). The lightning itself is proof of conductance from one end of the "bolt" to the other(s). It is when the human body becomes part of that current path that is potentially deadly.

 

An arc is just visible evidence of the current jumping an air gap. Lightning literally does not exist without this arc.

 

Mitch is absolutely correct that it is being completely surrounded by metal, an excellent conductor, in a plane or a car which provides the safety. Quite simply, the metal cage is a better conductor than the human body, therefore the great majority of the current from a lightning strike flows through the metal and not the human.

BTW, aircraft travelling through the air create enough static electricity that they are sometimes capable of creating their own lightning...

 

A lightning bolt that has travelled thousands of feet through air is not going to be stopped by any 1/4" of rubber (or even a vehicle's tire sidewall). The current path taken quite often when a human is struck by lightning is right through the soles of the shoes...

 

 

 

 

[NCStephen]

four lightening stories.. Two I saw, one happened to my daughter's classmate, one with my dad.

 

I was traveling along a front of storms and lightening strikes were frequently observed. The most I have ever witnessed. On a grassy knoll (was it two strikes or just one?) I happened to be looking at a Chevy Celebrity that was there for sale along with some other cars. The bolt of lightning hit it dead center on the roof. Of course a bright flash and explosive sound but then the aftermath was the roof continued to shoot up sparks like a roman candle. The interior of the car was completely black with smoke.

 

Second story as shared by my daughter while we were traveling. Her friend in school had her car struck while traveling. All seemed fine after the strike with the car operating normally. It wasn't raining so she pulled over just to check things. She opened the door to get out and next thing she knows the EMTs are there. The best speculation was that the car retained enough of the charge, or energy differential, that as she stepped out, she grounded it and was knocked out. The truth is that she was knocked out from something. The other part was the speculation on what was told her her.

 

Third, We were going from Wilmington down to Fort Fisher. It was clouding up behind us be still looked clear ahead. We were heading south, most storms track E>W or SE>NE here so we figured we could still get some afternoon beach time in. It is about 15 miles from Wilmington to Carolina Beach with Fort Fisher perhaps another 5 miles. We stopped and bought some water at the place that is marked as the halfway place. Just as we were leaving it began to sprinkle. It was still sunny ahead of us. We continued on to Carolina Beach and moved back into mostly sunny skys. As we came down the bridge, we were both looking over towards the beach and ocean and a mostly horizon bolt of lightning came from behind us and then arced down onto the beach, where it was still sunny. The clouds and rain were at least 5 miles behind us.

 

My dad was trout fishing up near Sparta when a nasty storm came up. He and his buddy that day were close to the car so got out of the stream and waited for the storm to blow over. In a nearby mountainside pasture were a bunch of sheep, maybe 30 if I remember right. They hunkered down under a few trees in the pasture. As they were watching, lightning struck into the trees, all but a few of the sheep fell over dead. They went and found the owners house and shared the bad news.

 

I will ride in many kinds of weather but don't like to be around lightning.

 

NCS

 

[racer7]

Years ago I was fishing a bass tournament on Honeyoe Lake in upstate NY when a charge between the lake and air on a cloudy got so high that my graphite fishing rod started to hum like a therimin every time I raised or lowered it to reel or cast. And the line wouldn't settle into the water- instead it hung in the air for almost 40 yds and then turned directly into the water above the bait. I was expecting to get hit but there was literally no place nearby to get away from it except under trees and I wasn't going there. Went away after about 20-30 minutes and we never saw any lightning. Fish didn't seem to notice

[Overbyte]

Yea, but it made for a great fly presentation...

 

Overbyte

[Glenn Reed]

Years ago I was fishing a bass tournament on Honeyoe Lake in upstate NY when a charge between the lake and air on a cloudy got so high that my graphite fishing rod started to hum like a therimin every time I raised or lowered it to reel or cast. And the line wouldn't settle into the water- instead it hung in the air for almost 40 yds and then turned directly into the water above the bait. I was expecting to get hit but there was literally no place nearby to get away from it except under trees and I wasn't going there. Went away after about 20-30 minutes and we never saw any lightning. Fish didn't seem to notice

 

Sounds like you were almost