What Happens When You Get Struck By Lightning?

Lightning is one of nature’s greatest and most awe-inspiring displays. It’s iconic for it’s use in horror films, rock music and being Emperor Palpatine’s weapon of choice. While everyone enjoys watching the odd lightning strike during a thunderstorm, I’m sure we can all agree that it’s better when viewed from afar. In fact, getting too close to lightning can have some dire consequences. Continue reading on as we dive into the details. 

How Does Lightning Form?

Unsurprisingly, the science behind Lighting is quite complicated. I’ll do my best to explain it in a way that’s somewhat easy to digest.

As I’m sure you already know, lighting comes from storm clouds which are made up of small water droplets. During a thunderstorm, updrafts cause these droplets are shifted throughout the cloud. This eventually results in the cloud having a negatively charged top and positively charged bottom. 

These opposing charges are insulated by the surrounding air until they become too powerful to contain. Once the charges break free from the atmosphere, is causes the rapid release of electricity we call lightning.

What Causes Lightning to Strike People?

When most lightning strikes leave a storm cloud, they have a negatively charged base. They will be drawn to positive charges.

These can be found on tall buildings, the ground and yes, people. Taller objects do tend to attract lightning much more compared to shorter ones, simply due to it being a shorter route for the lightning. 

You’ll often see this being combated by skyscrapers with their use of lightning rods. Made from highly conductive material, lightning rods are put in place specifically to attract lightning. As crazy as this sounds, it prevents strikes from directly hitting and or damaging the building.

How Many Ways Can You Get Struck by Lighting?

Direct Strike

As mentioned previously, it is possible to get directly struck by lightning. It's by far the deadliest type of encounter you can have with lightning. However, direct strikes are extremely rare, making up less than 5% of all human related lightning encounters.

Ground Current

Ground currents occur when lightning strikes a large object. As the energy passes through the object, it can continue to spread through the nearby ground. Anything within the surrounding area can fall victim to the current. In some situations, the radius of a ground current can reach up to 60 feet.

Because of their range and frequency, ground current strikes are responsible for the majority of lightning-induced injuries. As you can imagine, ground currents are also responsible for thousands of livestock fatalities each year.

Conduction

There is a relatively common myth that metal attracts lightning. While this isn’t the case, metal does in fact create a path for electricity. This is what makes conduction lightning strikes possible. 

When lighting strikes an object, the current can jump to a nearby metal surface. This allows the lighting to travel along the metal object, making it extremely dangerous to whoever is in contact with it.

What makes conduction so unique is that it’s capable of harming you even while indoors. 

Touching metal objects that connect outside (like plumbing and metal wires) can put you at risk for conduction. 

Side Flash

Side Flashes are very similar to ground currents and conduction. Though instead of the current moving to the surrounding ground or metal object, a portion of the energy bounces straight to the victim.

While being one of the deadlier types of lightning strikes, it’s one of the easiest to avoid. Side flashes often occur when someone is seeking shelter under a tree during a thunderstorm.

How Does Being Struck by Lightning Effect the Body?

Getting struck by lightning can result in a plethora of different injuries. Many of them can be fatal, but the severity comes down to how close you were to the lightning strike. 

In very lucky cases, lightning strike victims walk away only obtaining a few bad burns on the skin. Ruptured eardrums are another less severe injury, affecting those who don’t even come into direct contact with lightning.

Lighting carries over 10 million volts of energy. For comparison, the average household light bulb uses only 120 volts. With this information, it’s not difficult to see why lightning can be so deadly.

Here are some of the more catastrophic injuries lightning can cause:

• Cardiac arrest
• Fatal burns
• Organ damage
• Strokes
• Brain hemorrhages
• Severe nerve damage

If you ever witness someone getting struck by lightning, it’s crucial to contact emergency services immediately. Many of the previously listed symptoms can be dependent on how fast the victim receives medical attention. 

Someone who's been struck by lightning is not dangerous to touch and won’t pose any threat to first responders.

How to Stay Safe from Lightning

While this may seem obvious, the best way to avoid being struck by lighting is to simply seek proper shelter. This can easily be remembered with the classic phrase, "When thunder roars, go indoors". 

When looking for shelter, avoid trees, large poles, or any metal objects. Vehicles can be a safe option for shelter, so long as all the windows can be fully closed. If shelter is not available, make sure to never lay flat and to avoid elevated surfaces.

It’s crucial to stay out and away from large bodies of water during a thunderstorm, as water conducts electricity very well. If you’re hearing thunder while swimming, get out immediately and find shelter away from the water. 

It’s also recommended to wait 30 minutes from the last lightning strike before reentering a large body of water.

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