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Your Experience with lightening strikes near you.
#1
Fishingbob just returned from a fishing trip awhile back on Cascade Reservoir and told of his shocking experience with static electricity. This got me to thinking of my experiences around lightening. Have any of you had close calls with lightening strikes?
Here are a couple of close calls I have. You might share your experiences after my story. It may save someone's life.

About 23 years ago a friend and I were visiting the mountains just east of Spencer, Idaho and west of the old opal mines. It was a clear robin's egg blue sky with no clouds. Within the hour after arriving, a small lone storm cloud came heading our way. It was dark but had no signs of storm activity coming from it. We saw it but didn't think much about it. When it nearly reached the low mountains we were exploring, it started dropping a little rain AND lightening bolts strikes around us. At one point strikes hit within a hundred to hundred and fifty feet and it sounded like cannons going off around us. At that point my friend and I hit the ground and hugged the earth for all we were worth. Standing up might almost mean instant death from a lightening bolt as we were nearly the tallest object on a sagebrush covered hillside.

On another occasion a friend and I were standing on a sidewalk in central Indiana when it started to rain. Within a minute or so a lightening bolt struck just across the street near a garbage can not more than 35 feet away. That was a little too much for our liking. We headed for safety.

Now your turn to tell your electrifying experiences with Zeus bolts of energy.

DeeCee
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#2
I've been hit three times. The after effect, if you survive is more unsettling then the initial strike. After the strike, every electric motor reaches out and bites you and I'm not talking a little static electricity tap. You reach for the soap under the sink and the garbage disposal about knocks you to your knees or you pass a stand up drill press to close and it tries to tear your arm off. Not a fun side effect.
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#3
This was a spooky night. The lightning started fires all around Boise and Nampa was ground zero from what smartweed said. I didn't catch any fish that night but I did the next day. Ron


[Image: UncleJimtrip9.jpg]
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#4
My wife was struck when she was younger. She was in a field on a bench when the lightning hit her and threw her off the bench. I don't think there was rain when it hit her.

I grew up in Nor Cal and there were a bunch a guys hiking up half dome and saw a storm coming. Worst thing you want to see while on a huge granite slab. By the time the storm hit, they couldn't get off the mountain and bunkered down under an overhanging rock. None of the four guys got hit directly, but the lightning hit the granite mountain and went threw it. Two of the guys were on their hands and knees and both died, one guy was huddled over but only his rubber sole shoes were touching and he barely got hurt, and another guy had some part of his body touching the granite and got hurt but survived. So take home story is that if you get stuck on a granite mountain in a lightning storm, don't lay down.
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#5
I've had them hit close, power pole in the yard, etc. Probably the most dangerous was when I was a little kid. My dad took my sister and I fishing in our little aluminum jonboat on a small lake. It clouded up and the air got heavy. We were trolling for bass and doing good. Then we noticed my sister's long, fine blond hair was standing straight out like and afro. Pa said reel em in and had us lay on the bottom of the boat then he ran for shore and shoved the boat right under willows. Lightning then hit all around the little lake.
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#6
When I was about 14 we went to the windrivers for a scout campout. My dad was scoutmaster and he took everything in on horses. Is all we had to take was our sleeping bag and water.

On the way out everyone was anxious to get home . The boys were running down the trail not having to carry much. The other leaders were trying to keep up with them and keep an eye on them.

My dad was behind taking it easy with horses loaded down with equipment. A storm came in and lightning started striking everywhere. The horses were spooked and my dad got bucked off and stomped on. All the scouts made it to the cars, but my dad couldn't walk and a blood vessel was broke filling his leg with a huge blood balloon. All the sleeping bags and tents were soaked. So my dad had to crawl around on the trail putting a tent together and crawling into a wet sleeping bag. Some hikers gave him some pain killers and eventually an outfitter helped him gather the horese and load everything up. The other leaders wanted to get the kids home safe before going to look for my dad. Anyway he ended up getting out of the mountains about midnight and before going to the hospital stopped at a convience store in Pindale for gas and a bite to eat.

Two drunks were arguing and one pulled out a shot gun and shot the other guy. My dad ended up in Pinedale for another two days as the lone witness to the whole event. So you can see what kind of trouble lightning can get you in.[cool]

Windriver
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#7
You win.
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#8
The summer between my Jr and Sr years of high school, I spent nights driving truckloads of spinach from Dry Lake (south of Nampa) to the Bird's Eye plant across the road from Kohlerlawn Cemetery in Nampa. One night about 1am, on the way into town on Highway 45 just north of Bigfoot Road, a bolt of lightning struck the hood of my truck. The flash startled me but the boom was the worst part. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened and that I was not hurt.

In about 1993, I was awakened by my dog barking right under my bedroom window at around 3am. I got up and went to the window to see what she was barking at and just as I opened the window a bolt of lightning struck the transformer on the pole that dropped service to my house. other than losing power for the rest of the night and most of the next morning, I thought it was pretty cool. The dog thought otherwise and cowered in her doghouse til well past noon.

Finally, a few years ago, I was driving on Idaho 78 between Murphy and Oreana as a summer storm blew up from the south. About 100 yards ahead of me and only about 100 feet off the right side of the road, a bolt struck one of the many little humps common in that area. I just happened to be looking at that hump in the instant the bolt hit and actually saw the rising bolt come from the ground to meet the bolt from the cloud. That image is forever burned into my mind ... no pun intended.
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#9
Back in 1968 I had an experience with lightning on a flight leaving Hong Kong. I had spent 3 days in HK on an R&R and the commercial flight was taking us back to Vietnam. Weather that day was foul and it continued getting worse as the flight departed. By the time we were several thousand feet in the air, lightning started to appear and some of it was extremely close. As the jet was trying to gain altitude in the bumpy conditions a lightning bolt so close that I swear it rocked the plane gave us all a scare. I saw an arc from the top of my window to the bottom but no damage occurred and the flight continued with no mention from the cockpit of what may or may not have happened. Didn't ever think I'd be relieved to have my feet back on the ground in Nam, but I sure was happy when that flight was over.

Back in the late 70's I lived up in the mountains east of Uniontown, Pennsylvania [south of Pittsburg]. It seemed as though during each of the 3 summers I lived there, there was always someone getting struck by lightning on local golf coarses. Unfortunately some were fatal. Brings to mind that incredible scene from the Caddyshack movie where the Bishop gets hammered.

Remember that "Vacation" movie with Dan Ackroid and John Candy, and the scene where they meet the local guy with the "neo skunk hairdo" in the resort bar? The bartender explained that the while stripe though the oldtimer's black hair was as a result of him being struck by lightning several times. Said that when you see him start running that's a good indication that you should split from the scene...but go in a different direction. In real life there was a park ranger who was stationed on the Blueridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina who had been reportedly struck something like 7 times during the years he lived/worked in the park. Survived them all.
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#10
I have had several close strikes but the scariest was backpacking in Copper basin, I was fishing a little lake when a small cloud passed over and my fishing pole shocked me good. I dropped it so I picked it up and it let me have it again. This time when I dropped it it landed with the reel pinned between two rocks so the tip was standing up. I could see it sparking at the eyes and it was vibrating and humming. I left it there and ran down the mountain about 500 feet in elevation found a spot and hunkerd down and waited out one of the most impresive lightening storms I have ever seen. Went back for my rod about 3 hours later and it was still standing there all innocent like, but I knew better.
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#11
I was walking down the beach with my younger brother(I was 30 he was 26) in Costa Rica and a storm was approaching, so we hurried it up trying to get home before the rain started. Well suddenly a bolt of lightening came out of the sky and hit the hill to our right and from there it shot along the ground and passed just feet in front of us. It then proceeded to go out into the ocean about four hundred yards. It hit the water and then shot straight up into the clouds. This all took place in milliseconds. I looked over at my brother who had thin hair and it was standing straight up. The locals told us that an 8 year old boy had been killed several years earlier in about the same spot by lightening.

I have been on the Henry's Fork many a times when storms roll in and I put my rod down and hunker under some willows hoping that I had been a good guy the three before getting in that situation. I love the sonic boom thunders that just rock you (but nothing happens to me).
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#12
The closest I have been was up in Copper Basin. I was bushwacking along a ridge to a lake and there wasn't a cloud around that I could see. It all happened so fast that it was unreal. I could feel my hair start to lift and even the hair on my arms stand out. I dropped onto the balls of my feet in a squat and duck walked down as far as I could get. I was about 40 feet lower when it really started blasting the hill top. I don't know where the clouds --that weren't there minutes before-- came from. But suddenly there was a full blown storm hitting the mountain, with lightening and wind all over the place. It didn't last long, but long enough for me to be thinking I was going to get zapped next. The whole time my hair was standing on end. To this day I am not sure if it was static electricity or fear!


When your hair starts to lift or your fishing pole shocks you it is time to immediately take lightening precautions, such as getting away from your fishing rod, getting your body as low as possible, but still limit your contact with the ground. Squat on the balls of your feet and cover your head with your arms. It is scary stuff for sure. My hair still stands on end just when I think about it!!!
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#13
The movie you are talking about is The Great Outdoors. That is a really funny part.

Windriver
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#14
That's just a big enough adventure that I'm not sure whether to believe that one or not! But having met you, I guess I will. My adventure was real.
DeeCee
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#15
Theoldsarge,

The lightening coming out of the ground to meet lightening coming from above is a recently discovered event by photographers and or scientists. You saw one cool event.

DeeCee
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#16
Hey Dean I remember that movie with John Candy and that's what I think of (the guy with the white stripe down his hair) when it comes to people getting hit with lightening.

By the way, thanks for your service in Nam in defense of our American ideals and goals. I am truly grateful for our veterans. I especially feel bad and ashamed at how my fellow citizens treated our return vets from Vietnam. Anyway thanks for putting your life on the line in behalf of this country and all of us!

DeeCee
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#17
I love the sonic booming too. My wife Rose is from Indiana and here in Idaho the clapping and booming of thunder reminds here of home when she was growing up. Indiana really gets some lightening shows during summer.

DeeCee
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#18
Copper Basin has presented me with some wild stormy weather too on more than one occasion. On the one side of Big Lake up the Lake Creek drainage there is a spot where lightening has hit a number of times and burned individual trees. You can see the charred marks on the dead trees. There are some copper ore veins (copper sulfate)
running through the nearby rocks and I wander if that might be attracting the lightening strikes?

DeeCee
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#19
Cool photo!
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