Lightning is developing somewhere in the sky, at the heart of a storm.
Although it is uncommon, with the chances of being struck by lightning in your life being about 1 in 12,000, now and then a person will present an appealing target for lightning bolts to release their force.
And, of the approximately 500 individuals who are struck by lightning each year, around 90% survive.
You have a nine out of ten probability of surviving. But what are the long-term consequences of being subjected to hundreds of millions of volts of electricity?
How does lightning forms?
Johannes Plenio/Unsplash
Although scientists aren't sure what causes it, they suspect that ice particles colliding inside a cloud can create an excess of negative charge to build at the cloud's bottom, as per Insider.
This charge has the potential to be so strong that it repels electrons, or negatively charged particles, on the ground underneath it, leading the ground to become positively charged.
A powerful attraction develops between the cloud and the earth while an outrageously strong electrical field roils in the cloud above.
The runaway force that discharges this field is lightning. It speeds toward the earth at over 300,000 kilometers per hour, impacting with a power of 300 kV, up to 150 times that of an industrial shock.
It can even outperform a nuclear reactor in terms of power. When lightning strikes the earth, it creates a path of plasma that illuminates the sky with the zigzags of blueish-white light that we recognize as lightning.
In the three milliseconds, it takes a lightning bolt to pass through your body, a lot may happen.
As the lightning strikes and then escapes your body, it leaves severe wounds, which are sometimes accompanied by third-degree burns.
Your hair and clothing may catch fire or singe. The explosive power of the surrounding air being superheated to up to 50,000 degrees F might tear your garments (five times hotter than the surface of the sun).
They will sometimes save the garments, the shreds of shirt or pants that the physicians and nurses did not cut away.
They'll recount their tale, including photos and news accounts of similar or larger disasters.
Only by putting together spectator stories can survivors of lightning strikes piece together their own picture of the electrical current's likely course, which may surpass 200 million volts and move at one-third the speed of light.
Justin Gauger wishes he could forget getting struck by lightning while trout fishing in Arizona. Justin, an ardent fisherman, had been overjoyed when the storm blew up unexpectedly that August day more than three years ago. He informed his wife, Rachel, that fish bite more when it rains.
However, when the rain began to hail, Rachel and her two children made their way to the vehicle. Justin snatched a nearby folding chair and dashed towards the truck as the pellets became larger.
Then there was a loud explosion. A jolting, agonizing ache. "My whole body simply stopped, I couldn't move," Justin says. "I noticed a white light around my body, as if I were in a bubble." Everything was moving at a snail's pace," as per Reader's Digest.
Although survivors typically discuss entry and exit wounds, Mary Ann Cooper, a retired emergency medicine doctor, and experienced lightning researcher, says it's impossible to determine exactly what path the lightning takes.
According to Cooper, the visible proof of lightning's fury is more representative of the style of clothing a survivor is wearing, the monies they are carrying in their pockets, and the jewelry they are wearing.
According to data from 26 nations, lightning is responsible for about 4,000 deaths globally each year.
Cooper is one of a tiny global group of doctors, meteorologists, electrical engineers, and others who investigate what happens when a person is struck by lightning and, ideally, how to prevent it from happening in the first place.
