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Anyone ever been struck by ligtning ( Lightning) Ligtning = Texanese ALSO shocking tales of near electrocution incuding electric fences

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Since we're talking about non-lightning electrical surprises as well, here's a fun one.

Back around '72, I was doing a tune-up on my Opel Kadette. I had been listening to the car radio earlier while puttering around the car port, and in a goofy, momentary lapse, forgot to turn the key off before starting the tune-up. All was fine until I popped the distributor cap off and grabbed the rotor........ That's a jolt that will straighten your hair! And it's something you're not likely to do a second time. I sure didn't.
 
tshelfer said:
Opel
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Sorry got to switch the cars right quick
Kind of similar. Opal
a_opel-kadett-b-coupe-03.jpg


Datsun 310
CC-85-023-800.jpg
 
If it's a rock, it's an opal. If it's a German car, it's an Opel. I owned two over the years, but this was a '71 Kadette 2-dr, 1100cc engine. Not fast, but a lot of fun. Here it is in all its glory, sitting in the very driveway where I nearly electrocuted myself with the rotor.

48689496048_9382cc23dc_k.jpg
1971-75 Arizona-El Paso - 0006 by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr
 
Buick imported them. Had a friend with two Opel GT with the manual lever that rolled out headlights. The things handled pretty good but not much power.
 
I had two Opels, one a Rallye and one a plain Kadette. I liked them both.
 
Not a near electrocution, but a big wake-up with an electric fence. Some years back my wife, my brother-in-law, and I were going from Lubbock to a little town called Halfway outside Plainview by the back roads. At night. It had rained, and we hydroplaned in a low spot and put the Subaru in the ditch. We were under a fence wire. I tested the wire, found it wasn't hot, and got my brother-in-law to hold it up off the car so I could drive out. What we didn't know was there was a second wire, caught on the back bumper. It caught my brother-in-law behind the knees, and he came high-stepping out of that ditch like he was on fire! I guess he was, sort of.
 
Tourmeister said:
One thing to remember, it can be totally clear and you can still be hit by lightning from distant storms. I recall reading a story about a guy riding in Colorado on a clear day that was hit and killed. They later determined that the strike came from something like 8-10 miles away... :shock:
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I remember reading about that and how they determined all the components using eye witness accounts, lightning strike indicators, cell phone triangulation and a few other things.

Me? Not sure I'd call it a direct hit, but:

1. As a kid I was in my bedroom and the tree right outside my room/next to the house was hit and the tree came crashing into my room.
2. Houston area out in a field working in the oil industry and I'm walking the lease road. I can see the storm off in the distance and then all of a sudden my hair on the neck/arms stands up and then - WHAM/WHOOSH/CRACK/BANG. About 15' from me there's now a smoldering hole in the ground about 3' in diameter and a foot deep. Burnt cotton plants around that.
3. Driving in Austin years ago and the guardrail next to me starts sparking all sorts of bright and the sound was deafening. It was like a bright white light was pulsing up and down on the guardrail.
4. Living in Addison I was on the phone (land line) and I guess the building got hit. Felt like a molten knitting needle went in one ear, through my head and out the other ear. Hair stood up on the back of my neck and arms again. Was disoriented for a few minutes and my ears hurt for a while. Person called back and said I was incoherent for much of the conversation.

There's a fifth one in there somewhere but I just can't recall it at the moment. Yeah, I don't really care for storms much.
 
Dang Scott, you are a walking miracle. I would crawl under the bed during a storm if I had been hit a second time. Once was freaky enough. Electric fences pulse or they could kill too. They named it correct- Kill O What! Think its Irish ::(.:storm:
 
lightening:
Riding the bus home from elementary school, it was pouring down raining; you could barely see beyond the hood of the bus. It was overloaded with two routes of kids because one of the drivers refused to drive. I was stuck in the front seat opposite side of the driver and saw a huge bolt of lightening hit the street right in front of the bus causing the engine to die. That poor lady bus driver was already severely frazzled by the weather and all of the kids going nuts on the bus. When that bolt hit, it got real quite. She cranked the engine a few times and it finally fired back up. The rest of the ride, you probably could have heard a pin drop as everyone was praying to just get home.

electrocution:
I worked for a supercomputer company in the early '90s and the power to one of the systems were the cables from the breaker panel locked down on some lugs in the system. It was 3 phase 208 volts. The customer bought the system used and when it came in, the backplane had been damaged in shipping so we sent it back to the plant in Richardson to have a new one installed. When it came back to the customer site I was getting ready to install it and asked the data center's tech if the power was off to the cables. He said it was. Being cautious not to trust what someone said, I pulled the three cables up from under the floor and unwrapped the electrical tape, making sure I didn't touch the bare cables. I realized my meter was on the other side of the system and I couldn't reach it without setting the cables down. Not realizing the potential, I thought I would just quickly brush two ends of the cables together to see if they were hot. As anyone who had dealt with that type of voltage would know (I didn't), the sound was like a shotgun went off. The flash it generated caused me to see a blue dot for a couple of days. I still had a grip on the wires by the insulation and I hollered to the tech to turn the breakers off. He panicked and shut the whole data center down. Probably one the most stupid things I've ever done and had a new appreciation of life after that one.
 
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Been many killed by no LOTO. I got hit pretty bad several time in data centers. Most under the raised floors are rats nests, Buss systems above can be a mess as well.
 
jbird710 said:
lightening:
Riding the bus home from elementary school, it was pouring down raining; you could barely see beyond the hood of the bus. It was overloaded with two routes of kids because one of the drivers refused to drive. I was stuck in the front seat opposite side of the driver and saw a huge bolt of lightening hit the street right in front of the bus causing the engine to die. That poor lady bus driver was already severely frazzled by the weather and all of the kids going nuts on the bus. When that bolt hit, it got real quite. She cranked the engine a few times and it finally fired back up. The rest of the ride, you probably could have heard a pin drop as everyone was praying to just get home.

electrocution:
I worked for a supercomputer company in the early '90s and the power to one of the systems were the cables from the breaker panel locked down on some lugs in the system. It was 3 phase 208 volts. The customer bought the system used and when it came in, the backplane had been damaged in shipping so we sent it back to the plant in Richardson to have a new one installed. When it came back to the customer site I was getting ready to install it and asked the data center's tech if the power was off to the cables. He said it was. Being cautious not to trust what someone said, I pulled the three cables up from under the floor and unwrapped the electrical tape, making sure I didn't touch the bare cables. I realized my meter was on the other side of the system and I couldn't reach it without setting the cables down. Not realizing the potential, I thought I would just quickly brush two ends of the cables together to see if they were hot. As anyone who had dealt with that type of voltage would know (I didn't), the sound was like a shotgun went off. The flash it generated caused me to see a blue dot for a couple of days. I still had a grip on the wires by the insulation and I hollered to the tech to turn the breakers off. He panicked and shut the whole data center down. Probably one the most stupid things I've ever done and had a new appreciation of life after that one.
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Kinda in the same vein. When I first began working with treadmills in the 90s some were 220vac. I did like you said and accidentally brushed a relay and ka-pow! Didn't get hit but was a shocking experience any way. Learned that 220 was a whole nuther animal. Have wired houses since then and never take it for granted and always verify with meter.
 
I have never been struck, but I have danced with lightning twice.

About 6 years ago, my wife and I were at the waters edge of a large lake when a bolt struck about 10 feet in front of us. It was a sobering and frightening moment. Man was it loud and bright.

About 10 years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop in a small town. lightning struck somewhere nearby and the lights went out. The only lights left in the shop were the glow of a few laptops. Another really close strike and my lap top shot a bolt/spark out that lit up the entire place and hit me. It sure stung, but there was no mark and nothing wrong with my laptop. It was a really odd momemnt and one of my best friends was there. He saw it and we still joke about it.
 
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Triumphter said:
I have never been struck, but I have danced with lightning twice.

<snip>

About 10 years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop in a small town. lightning struck somewhere nearby and the lights went out. The only lights left in the shop were the glow of a few laptops. Another really close strike and my lap top shot a bolt/spark out that lit up the entire place and hit me. It sure stung, but there was no mark and nothing wrong with my laptop. It was a really odd momemnt and one of my best friends was there. He saw it and we still joke about it.
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Was your laptop plugged in, charging, at the time?
(or rather not charging since the lights were out?)
 
A big oak tree down at my fishing tank took a hit this morning. I am actually surprised at the minor damage. It also came with an inch of rain so I’m not complaining a bit.

245421


245422
 
Dig some of the dirt where it entered soil. In sand on a big strike I have found crystals. Mostly under pine trees. That is a strange hit not beginning higher in the tree, What a beautiful old old Oak. Is she a live oak?
 
Windmill said:
Dig some of the dirt where it entered soil. In sand on a big strike I have found crystals. Mostly under pine trees. That is a strange hit not beginning higher in the tree, What a beautiful old old Oak. Is she a live oak?
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yes she is. I’ll go back down there with a shovel. I’ve never heard of crystals forming like that. Interesting.
 
Saw a huge old native pecan tree beside the Blanco river near San Marcos that took a hit. It blew the bark off the trunk from top to bottom. Crazy part was all the pieces of bark were laid out around the tree in near perfect concentric circles... like the rings on a bullseye target. I couldn't have done it any neater by hand. Killed that tree dead as a 2X4.

We used to have a group of pro fishing guides that would get together at various lakes around Texas just for fun. If they heard so much as faint thunder those boats were off the water quick as the engines would go. Those fellers took lightning right seriously.

My Dad grew up on the high plains of Texas. He saw rolling lightning many times. Big ball of electricity that seemed to roll across the ground. Wired stuff that lightning.
 
Computer, how hot is lightning? ...



53,540 degrees Fahrenheit

Yep, the answer is a bolt of lightning, which can reach temperatures of roughly 30,000 kelvins (53,540 degrees Fahrenheit). The sun, on the other hand, is eclipsed in this case - its surface temperature is just 6,000 kelvins(10,340 degrees Fahrenheit).May 13, 2010
 
:eek2:
aspr said:
That made me curious.

Here is a article about the reaction of lightning and sand

blogs.discovermagazine.com

What Really Happens When Lightning Strikes Sand

A bogus viral photo is circulating on Reddit. Here's the real story.
blogs.discovermagazine.com blogs.discovermagazine.com
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This is truth, if you search the trees near it you will find one where it tried to go up. It will not be as profound going up. Maybe not since water is near. When I lived in pine tree country, a hard struck pine usually died within a year. A lighting event is good fertilizer fo plants an possibly for a person standing near :storm: :eek2::shock:
 
Windmill said:
:eek2:
This is truth, if you search the trees near it you will find one where it tried to go up. It will not be as profound going up. Maybe not since water is near. When I lived in pine tree country, a hard struck pine usually died within a year. A lighting event is good fertilizer fo plants an possibly for a person standing near :storm: :eek2::shock:
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I might have some spots
 
Climbing one time, my brother and I were in a thunderstorm on top of Notch Mountain in Colorado. Didn't get hit, but it hit all around us.

Leaving the house when I was a teenager I had a dip in my mouth and decided to wipe it off on an electric fence I thought was off. I learned why my German Shepherd hid anytime the fence was turned on.

I'll post up a photo of a pine by the house that had the top blown out of it.
 
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