Anyone here ever nearly been struck? This article hit home as it almost happened to myself and my unit, also in Florida. We were training on patrol in the woods of Camp Blanding when a pop-up thunderstorm arrived very quickly. We called for a vehicle and had just put our packs and weapons in the back of a deuce and started jogging back to base camp when we heard the crackling then bright flash and boom. It struck a small tree about 15-20 feet away. No injuries, just freaked out a bit. I can't say if we had still been carrying our weapons whether we would have been more attractive and been hit. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/14/weather/florida-rangers-lightning-season-odds/index.html
Yes, many years ago while playing golf a couple of bolts came real close. We were at the most distant point from the clubhouse when one of those pop-up Tstorms hit us. Rain, lightning, & hail. We got pounded by the hail until we reached a shelter.
I have been within 60 feet of a tree strike. It shook the ground and knocked me down. Kind of scary. When I was in little league a kid was struck and killed by lightning in the outfield. There was no thunder warning at all. My team wasn't on the field at the time. But after that they got very diligent about shutting down games every time a cloud came up.
1st Battalion, back in the day... In 15 years out here, I have never once seen lightning and only twice heard thunder. I actually miss those things.
came home from work one afternoon and was sitting in my recliner watching tv when a bolt hit the cable box outside the house. we have a huge picture window right there so the flash was brilliant. six years active duty and I hit the floor. fried our tv, cable box, dvd, home theater, etc.
I've had 3. Was building a shop up the road at a family members place. Hangin some beams had a little shower come on us but it was very light and no cause for concern.....until 1 seemingly random lone strike hit part of the metal frame we were all on. Me dad grandpa brother uncle and a few cousins all just about got killed. Knocked everyone down and 3 of us unconscious. Next time was on a boat that got hit. No real bad bodily impact on that one just fried all the electronics. Luckily motor was an old 2 stroke no computer or anything so it still ran fine. Last one was just the other day had a bad squal come through and as it was pretty much gone I went to get something from the toolbox on my truck. As I was shutting the lid and bolt hit a tree about 50 yards from me and I got a pretty good shock between my hand the tool box. Felt like a static shock just times about 200. On a related note several years ago we had about 30 head of angus cattle killed by lightning right here about 75 yards from my house which is almost the exact same spot that bolt hit the other day. Up on top of this hill we get trees struck seems like near about every squal.
Was in a wooden boat. Thank God it wasn't aluminum. Was going down Baton Rouge Bayou because I had some crawfish traps in Devil's Swamp. A thunderstorm came up and started to get real bad real close. I was going to pull up and get under shelter at one of the camps lining the side of the bayou when a lightning bolt hit what looked like about 15 feet in front of me in the water. I dropped flat in the bottom of the boat and rode it out for what seemed forever until the storm passed but was probably only 10 or 15 minutes. I was soaking wet but I didn't even want to rise up high enough to get a slicker out of a hatch in the front of the boat. I've never been more scared in my life. About a year ago a woman in Houma got struck by lightning while she was talking on her cell phone inside a grocery store. Seems the lightning traveled through the store's sprinkler system. She was lucky she wasn't killed or very severely injured.
In high school, I was at a friends house playing Tecmo Super Bowl 3 on his SNES. Lightning hit a clothes line in the backyard. It ran down the clothes line, jumped to the cable line, then spread through the house. He and I were both zapped through the SNES. It was very surreal as the sound and flash of lightning was instantaneous and in sync with being shocked.
