Struck By Lightning.....Three Times In 11 years!!!!!!

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

I dont know if any of the rest of you ever had a brush with death, but I have and more than once.

In 1995, I was fresh out of the Military after serving 8 years of the Army and the Pennsylvania National Guard located in Hershey, Pa. I was a Field Artillery Meteorological Crewmember. I decided to go on a 'hunt' and from all the videos I had I went and bought some equipment and loaded it into a car, a brand new one no less, and headed for Oklahoma. It was August, and a very hot summer and I wanted to just go for a drive to my old basic training site in Lawton, Oklahoma and take some video and pictures.

I only had some extra weather equipment with me (weather wizard III, and a scanner, cb, ham radio, cell phone and 2 radio antennas, along with 5 other antennas, which I'll come to later). I started out early in the morning and drove all day and was getting late as I went across Missouri and crossing into Oklahoma. I had heard about a storm in Tulsa and was heading there and from about 70 miles away, I could see the cloud tops of the anvil shaped mass and the lightning on the horizon.

As I got closer, some truckers warned me that in Tulsa the storm was bad. It was close to 1am now and I was tired and wanted to spend the night in a hotel somewhere in Tulsa, so I marched on. Traffic was coming out of Tulsa from the southwest, and I could tell this was a huge storm from way back. I got outside of the city and the gust front associated with the outflows were fierce. I measured a 76mph blast on my anemometer at a standstill on the side of the road and then entered into the beginning of hell. I was leary about driving into this storm with all the antennas and a barely new car, but I had to. I drove slowly and it seemed like the traffic was non existant now as I got into town.

The lightning was incredible and constant 'cg's' (cloud to ground) were all about. I then pulled into this gas station closed for the night and watched the winds and the rains come down and with more intensity. I figured about 15 minutes into sitting there I'd leave, but then the hail started. It got pretty calm and the rain tapered just long enough for golf ball sized hail to fall, and I was lucky to be under a shelter. I figured after the hail was over that I'd be ok, but the storm back builded and I ventured out for a place to shack up for the night when it happened.

Just as some of the last bits of hail came down, and a strange calm cast over Tulsa, I went thru town and the flooded streets and downed limbs and could tell the power was out in many areas in the suburbs. Just as I was checking my AAA trip ticket I saw some real close bolts, one hitting a pole about 75 feet away. I wanted to turn around and then the rain shaft along with the hail started again and I tried to race to yet another safe haven....no good.

About 15 seconds after seeing the pole hit, I saw, felt and heard an unbelievable shock and explosion. I just stopped and the car died and I blacked out for a few seconds to get my bearing. When I got my senses, my right arm and wrist that was holding the shift lever had been numbed by something, and my radios were shorted out and the smell of metal and wires stunk up the inside. To my best guess, I was hit by a direct bolt of lightning. It had travelled down and bridged across all the antennas I had on the top and the trunk and blew out most of my equipment: my cb was totally melted and the plastic housing cracked...had I keyed up the mike on the cb to talk to someone at that moment, I'd be not here telling this story.

My ham radio and portable scanners were ok but the mounted ones were shot. My car radio didnt work anymore and was frozen in the time it displayed, real eerie. My weather station survived the hit and was running off of the batteries I had spare in the trunk to also power other accessories. The car didnt fare so well, and I was in a daze when I checked into a hotel and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning I saw the burns in the passenger seat and all along the door frame it snaked where the metal for the window mechanisms are located. The paint on the roof of the car showed where the lightning's current scattered about in a pattern outward, much like a picture you'd see of a golf flag that got hit and from the hole outward the fingers showed. My back window was cracked and I didnt even know the side window in the back was completely blown out. Funny thing, not one shard of glass was to be found, it blew outward. I also had a tail light blown off and never found it.

I went back to the scene and the power crews were still restoring power and I was stopped by a woman who saw when I got hit....happened right in front of her house. I became good friends with her and others who made it through that sleepless night as we shared stories and our own personal accounts. I'm just glad I only got a good shock and the car saved me in more ways than harmed me. All 8 of the antennas I had on the car had to be replaced. The current that travelled through them wiped out most of the wiring and fused or incinerated them.

I just remember the sulpherous smell like someone lit a match and blew it out real fast. I was just happy that the day I spent in Tulsa and the following day the weather was perfect. I still have some pictures and video, but not of that night. I wish I had, but you'd never think of whipping out a camera at 2am in a storm like that...especially when you're tired and just want to sleep!

I still have the car and some dents from the hail as a memoir, and its a 94 Grand Am GT, bought new in May of that year, and as of this writing has 228,000 miles on it...but this car has another story all its own for other forums! Well, this was the 1st story, here goes number 2.

I was at a car stereo shop in 1997 and filling out a form for a local sound off in Scranton, Pa, close to where I live. It was August again and a hot day, very humid and there was a crew trying to erect this aluminum tent right outside the garages in the parking lot. Needless to say a storm cropped up and got nasty fast much like the Tulsa one.

The tent crew just layed the tent on the ground as the rest of us took cover as the downdrafts of cold air came rushing in before the storm arrived. We could see lightning hitting billboards about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away and we were all watching from inside the garage with the doors open behind these large tables set up for competitors.

The shop owner who I know real well wanted to go out and close his windows in his Corvette, when it happened again. Just as he grabbed an umbrella (bad idea), a bolt of lightning hit the top of a light pole and it knocked all 6 of us standing in the garage, right across the tables and into the back of the garage. What we experienced was the blow out effect of the lightning branching out and punching us right in the gut.

This was an indirect hit this time, but I knew right away it was lightning. We didnt even hear the thunder since we were picking ourselves up and checking to see if everyone was ok. To the best of my knowledge, the tarp and tent was laying before us in between the light pole and the garage...it saved us from probable injury or worse. It was made of aluminum and that in itself made the blast not as strong once it hit to where we were.

All the car alarms were going off, and yes, mine was the one parked next to the pole. This time no damage...thank God! Those are my brushes with death by thunderstorms, and I'm sticking to it! The weird thing is this: I felt the hair stand on end a split second before the lightning hit the pole like they warn you about. Trouble is, you dont know where and when and how lightning will strike and its capabilities once it hits its mark. I'm just glad I'm here to tell about it. I figure third time is the charm...so here goes:

Yes, I (barely) got hit when I was 17 years old...in 1986 when I lived in upstae NY near Elmira. It was July 20th 1986 and I have audio tape of this nasty storm from start to finish on a 90 minute cassette. I had a boom box pointed outside my room window and I narrated the storm's approach. Once the lightning got pretty close I was inside and some hit transformers and tops of buildings to make an orange flash glow or even blue like.

The storm seemed to die out but just before some pea sized hail fell and after 3.40" rain in under 1 hour and 15 mins. I ventured back outside and stood on the front steps under the roof overhang and one last bolt hit close by...I caught it out of the corner of my eye and it too had hit a phone pole and the strange part is I felt it in the cast iron railings I was leaning against.

So I guess you can say I have survived a very distant light shock that came through the phone lines and into our house before fizzling out. I've heard of lightning going through pipes and blowing things up, but never really looked into the possibility of getting a shock from metal rails in concrete almost 1/4 mile away from the hit. But anything can happen, as I have seen.

While I love to watch storms and all its fury, I tend to be a little leary when it comes to being outside even if the storm is far enough away. Just the idea of lightning travelling so far through other mediums is scary enough and can be permanent if it gets to you the right way. I hope some of you took the time to read this as I've endured some wild times throughout my meteorological endeavors.

Even in the Army I was tracking a pilot balloon and the radiosonde got hit by lightning and exploded. Reminded me of the 1986 Challenger disaster...real scary! Now a days I just watch it on tv and occasionally venture out, but I'm very careful, cause there may be a next time, and I'm not hoping for it!

It goes to show the power and fury and yet the beauty of what we live in on a daily basis.

[Rainband]

LMAO..seriously glad your still in one piece, remind me not to stand next to you during a storm

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

lol John.....lightning seems to find me!

[Skywatch_NC]

lol Rob...you are quite the human lightning rod!

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

lol sure am Eric.....so glad I dont have a metal plate in my head!