Factoid from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: There are on average, 400 folks hit by lightning each year in the USA. Of that, only 10% die and several could be saved by CPR. Of the survivors, 60 to 80% have some lasting, physical damage. The rest walk away.
The biggest culprit for indoor lightning strikes and injury is people being on a hard wired telephone (cordless doesn’t count) .
Tips for not getting zapped:
Removing all metal objects from your person is recommended.
Don’t stand in a crowd of people. – “Spread out”
If you feel a tingling sensation, your hair stands on end or you hear
‘buzzing’ from nearby rocks, fences, etc., move immediately.
Lightning may be about to strike!
Immediately crouch down, get on the balls of your feet
and cover your ears.
Do not lie down or place your hands on the ground.
***
One time, a friend and I were playing tennis at the high school. A big June thunderstorm was coming in and we were leaving and as I was trotting under the “H” metal goalpost of the varsity football field, I HEARD the pipes BUZZING and clicking. This noise stopped the INSTANT that a big bolt of lightning hit down behind the school, about a quarter to a half mile away.
My friend didn’t believe me that the pipes were buzzing and I KNOW I heard it. No chance–it was real. It actually annoyed me that he didn’t believe me, but, oh well, what are you going to do? It is a wild story. Then I googled up the phenomenon surrounding lightning strikes and you know what? People near strikes and some of those who get hit sometimes report the buzzing. In fact, a couple accounts I read said that even ROCKS were buzzing. At least I’m not nuts.
But when I think of how close I was to getting hit, I think “zoinks”. Lightning is not playing. –Fog
Recall a story my sister told of being on Cape Cod with her boyfriend and a summer storm was brewing but not imminent. Anyway, everyone was going down to a lake and if you got close to the water, your hair would stand on end and people were just having a ball, doing the hair-on-end thing and I said, “…you know you were all really close to getting struck by lightning when you did that?”
She said that after about 15 minutes, they did think of that and got the willies and left. Nothing ever came of it but I am thinking that it was close. Positive charge builds up on the ground and negative in the clouds and all the positives send up streamers, begging to get hit and equalize electrically. That’s what was happening.
When I heard the goalposts chattering, they were streaming and begging for the lightning I saw come down behind the school. Geez, if you ever actually FEEL that, get the hell out of there fast. –fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — February 6, 2007 @ 10:53 pm |
We were recently in Colorado. It had been storming, but it subsided. We were on top of a mountain and our HANDS were BUZZING! Even more amazing, we could change the “tone” of the buzz by putting our hands palm to palm — the closer the palms were together, the lower the tone, the further my palms were apart, the higher the tone. Has anyone heard of people buzzing?!!? Yes, our hair was standing on end and when we touched each others arms, it would “pop”…not just a little snap, but a “pop”! It was so amazing, and yes, I know how lucky I was to get out alive!!
Comment by Deby — July 13, 2007 @ 12:01 am |
[...] in July, a few months after the original post, my old lightning post (which can be read here) is going crazy getting 50+ hits a day. I don’t know why. I think that there is a national [...]
Pingback by Lightning Quick I-Pods « The Pinetar Rag — July 13, 2007 @ 7:14 am |
I’ve gotta know….has anyone else ever had their body or hands “buzz” when in threatening weather? Our experience in Colorado was so surreal. I’ve googled this topic and have found several notations regarding metal items and rocks buzzing, but not people. Has anyone ever heard of this before?
Comment by Deby — July 16, 2007 @ 8:51 am |
I have googled and found cases of mountaineers reporting that their ice axe was ringing or buzzing while in their hands or in their pack but never just hands and, as a matter of fact, you have to look pretty hard before finding the buzzing references at all. It is not common. If you hear it, it may be the last thing you ever hear.
In my case, I only heard about 3 seconds worth of buzzing before the lightning struck and it ended abruptly.
I did find one case on the web where some radio antenae techs were sitting in their van watching a storm approach and listening to the tower buzz. No immediate lightning ever happened and the noise subsided after 20 minutes or so.
I still can’t get over how lucky you must have been to not have been struck!
Play the lottery… and thanks for the feedback–best comment yet! –fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — July 16, 2007 @ 10:08 am |
This post is getting hit more and more each day. Can someone tell me, WHO or WHAT is linking me? HOW did you find this post on my raggety little blog? I’d love to know. Browse around, I’m nuts, you’ll be entertained. –fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — July 16, 2007 @ 8:15 pm |
Could it be the post was dugg at digg.com?
Comment by John Walker — July 17, 2007 @ 3:41 pm |
I think I was googling the words “buzz” and “lightning” when I found your blog. Probably a lot of hits from the whole ipod/lightning issue.
Comment by Deby — July 17, 2007 @ 8:36 pm |
Yes, I tend to agree. The hits seem to match the inbound text searches from search engines but the stats are just so weird. It’s increased a little bit each day but is showing signs of leveling tonight. Thanks. –fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — July 17, 2007 @ 8:45 pm |
I found your post by searching images of lightning on google.
Comment by meggieca — July 28, 2007 @ 8:49 pm |
My husband told me that his mother got hit by a little bit of lightning…she was wearing a metal barrette and it (the lightning) bounced off of something and hit her hair piece. Afterward they could smell her hair and she said she felt it hit her piece…then today my father-in-law said that his dad was asleep on the floor in his house, and that lightning came through his door, traveled across his dad and went out the back door. I don’t know how possible that is but it sounded hilarious. Oh and btw, his dad survived.
Comment by Latoya — June 13, 2008 @ 10:37 pm |
Oh, and I found your post by searching images for lightning.
Comment by Latoya — June 13, 2008 @ 10:38 pm |
Latoya: Excellent stuff! The thing you are referring to is “ball lightning”. It is very rare and very creepy (and I have only read of it and never seen it). Ball lightning can be an orb the size of a basketball and it can travel across rooms and come in and go out windows and so forth. It is a weird and rare phenomenon and you can probably google it up and read up on it. Don’t scoff, is my point; it’s possible the account is accurate. Thanks and respect lightning–it is real and it is powerful. –Fog
Comment by mcgonnigle — June 14, 2008 @ 12:08 pm |
Me and my cousin were ote side in a storm playing with his dog when we saw a lightning bolt strike to the ground like 100m away we wnt to check it out an there was smoke coming out of the ground and the ground was hot when we went back to his house we were like 40m away from the hole when the lightning striked agine in the same hole the noise was so loude that i heard buzzing in my ears till the following morning. In the morning about 4h after the storm we went to check the hole agine and we saw a metal rod pushed in the mud. So we assumed that some idiot pushed it down there the previous day before the storm. It’s been like 3 year from then and i still dont know how that idiot was. So ween i got home i read on the internet that kightning can strike the same place twice.
Comment by Bolt — July 20, 2008 @ 2:29 am |
sorry with kignthing i meant lightnig
Comment by Bolt — July 20, 2008 @ 2:30 am |
When my mom was a child she was struck when a bolt came through the kitchen window. It didn’t touch her mom who was in the room with her. She first told me about it when we were talking about the day my cousin was hit when he was out fishing with his dad. Bright sunny day–no clouds in the sky and BAM! The lighting jumped from the corrugated metal roof of the old mill and hit his belt buckle and threw him to the ground. He survived with some burn scars. He was probably very lucky that it hit the metal in the roof as it’s a good chance it was “positive lightning” (i.e. a “bolt from the blue”) as it is rarer, and six to ten times more powerful than regular lightning. This was at Pate’s pond near Mount Olive NC. (I was fishing with my cousin there when he told me about it.)
I found your blog while researching lightning. We are expecting some major storms in the next week (So. California) and I am planning (hopefully) to photograph some wild weather. I love watching storms–I just hope lightning strikes don’t run in my family.
Comment by Allen — July 21, 2008 @ 11:22 pm |
Don’t know why the happy face thing appeared–it should be a right parentheses.
Comment by Allen — July 21, 2008 @ 11:31 pm |
Summer 2006 I worked in a truck yard up in the open country with a rock quarry about a kilometer or half a kilometer away. Our yard was surrounded by tall chain link fences. We decided to watch the approaching storm from an open shop door staring in the direction of the quarry, when a very large bolt of lightning crashed in the pit. The moment it happened the fence about 20 feet from us rattled and hissed at the instant of the bolt a second before the thunder. This fence averages about 10 feet tall topped with barbed wire and has a 40 foot tall gate. This was not thunder rumbling it because it is in solid concrete and many trucks drive by it day by day, and it rattled before any thunder. Lightning does strange things as it is very powerful and sends off an EMP. So the story of buzzing goal post is probably true. Look up St. Elmos Fire.
Comment by Art — July 23, 2008 @ 12:19 pm |
hi I am from New Zealand – the other side of the world when I came across your blog while looking for pics on lightning.
My partner and I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and our house is on a big hill. One night we could see a big thunderstorm approaching so went outside in the rain to bring all the animals in. My partner went to bring in our big umbrella on our deck – that has a metal stand. Just as we got closer he said ‘can you hear that noise?” It was the stand buzzing. I heard it and was just about to say “Dont touch it” when he grabbed hold of it and lightning struck. It was surreal feeling I remember saying “Oh my god no” and he literally flew through the air to the other side of the deck. He is fine now, this was 6 months ago although he may have permanent burn on the soles of his feet, where the lightning comes out apparently. He has also had heart problems, it has stopped twice since, and I’m convinced its because of the lightning strike. Very scary I have become very paranoid whenever a thunderstorm approaches now…
Comment by H — July 28, 2009 @ 4:41 pm |
The reason why you’re getting so many hits is because Google has got you somehow, that’s how I found you, I was researching ball lightning and came across this.
Comment by Malaina — July 24, 2008 @ 1:00 am |
I was looking up Ball Lightning on google images aswell.
I have seen it once in 1961 in South London in my attic room.
It was not raining, average temperature, clear sky but thunder rumbling.
I had no idea it was a type of lightning for years afterwards
and it didn’t behave like the ordinary stuff does at all.
I was awe-struck…. it was a brilliantly bright golden ball
about the size of a football and it hovered and moved
slowly through the window and across the room.
It seemed magical and no-one I spoke to knew about it..or what it was.
I was credited with a bit of an imagination in those days…
There was no internet either!.
Even today though a lot of people are skeptical.
Comment by dr mum — August 2, 2008 @ 4:10 pm |
Today we had record high temperature in Corvallis, OR. We don’t get alot of thunder or lightning. I was in town visiting my parents for a get together for HP. At about 10:30pm tonight in the sky about 30-40 miles south some weather picked up and was moving north up the valley. We have a view just a block up the street of the whole valley. So we went up to watch the storm until it got really close. We headed back and the wind was really kicking up. The rain just soaked everything for about 10 minutes and then it appeared that the clouds were still heading NW up to the coast range. The storm wrapped back around and I was thinking “hey, no big deal I’m gonna step outside with Mom and see what’s going on. I walked through the front yard and there was seriously the weirest feeling that I had ever experienced. I heard noticed my hair stand up and seriously in an instant everything was silent. All I remember was hearing a buzzing from what sounded like the sky and my dad yell “GET INSIDE!!!”. It was increasingly loud and only lasted less than 2 to 3 seconds. Instantly a bolt came down as freaking close to the house as any could come. The thunder was immediate. My mom and I ran under cover, under the porch and watched two more bolts hit no more than what seemed like a mile away. There was a smell like burning hair when I got back inside which my dad said was burning ozone….who knows what that means. I probably sound like a hick that doesn’t know anything. All I know is what I experienced. Sometimes you have to take nature a little more seriously.
Comment by Trestletop — August 17, 2008 @ 4:21 am |
before a lightning bolt strikes there is a huge ammount of static electricity around as this is what lighting is, this will make your hair stand on end and will create a buzzing like when you were at school and put your hand on the metal bit of the static machine and zapped your mate. as mentioned in an earlier post ‘Positive charge builds up on the ground and negative in the clouds and all the positives send up streamers, begging to get hit and equalize electrically’. one of these with low or the lowest resistance will let the static dissipate (strike) so if you can feel it and hear buzzing you might just be the path of lowest resistance, RUN!
Comment by luke — September 1, 2008 @ 5:00 pm |
Man lightning is pretty scary some times but I’ll tell you about this one time my sister and my dad were traveling through New Mexico and a huge storm hit. We were on the interstate at that time and it was raining so hard that all of the cars and trucks on the interstate pulled over and just stopped. Windshield wipers weren’t doing a damn thing and it was too dark to really see anything. Lightning started lighting up the sky so I looked around outside of the car windows. About an hour of sitting at the side of the road I saw a lightning strike that goes down as the scariest lightning strike I’ve seen. It light up the sky so well that you could see this monstrous funnel cloud in the distance. That funnel cloud did become a tornado and you can bet your dollar people learned how to drive through that storm, heh.
Comment by Aaron — September 8, 2008 @ 10:22 am |
That buzzing was true. I was inside my aunts house when lightning struck the ground right out side twice in a span of 3 min. I clearly remember hearing a loud buzz right outside of the house and copming from the “rock bed” right outside the door
Comment by John — January 8, 2009 @ 7:17 am |
I had a similar experience to Deby’s–just climbed a peak in Colorado this weekend. A storm was building as we were getting to the top. There were 3 other people & a dog at the summit; the dog’s tail started to buzz like crazy, and soon after my fingers started to emit an audible buzzing noise too. I didn’t have an ice pick or any metal on me (except a camera). None of the others were affected. Freaked me out & I got down fast!
p.s. i found this blog through google “buzzing” “lightning” “fingers” “hands”
Comment by marie — July 13, 2009 @ 1:56 pm |
hi I am from New Zealand – the other side of the world when I came across your blog while looking for pics on lightning.
My partner and I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and our house is on a big hill. One night we could see a big thunderstorm approaching so went outside in the rain to bring all the animals in. My partner went to bring in our big umbrella on our deck – that has a metal stand. Just as we got closer he said ‘can you hear that noise?” It was the stand buzzing. I heard it and was just about to say “Dont touch it” when he grabbed hold of it and lightning struck. It was surreal feeling I remember saying “Oh my god no” and he literally flew through the air to the other side of the deck. He is fine now, this was 6 months ago although he may have permanent burn on the soles of his feet, where the lightning comes out apparently. He has also had heart problems, it has stopped twice since, and I’m convinced its because of the lightning strike. Very scary I have become very paranoid whenever a thunderstorm approaches now…
Comment by H — July 28, 2009 @ 4:45 pm |
My wife and I experinced the buzzing hands today! We were at the top of “Parker mountain” in Acton california when it happend. there was high clouds above us and in the far distance there was thounder heads (anvil shaped clouds) with rain coming down. We knew that there was a chance of lighting coming so we wanted to get up and down as fast as posible. when we got to the top of the mountain we were standing on the edge of an old slab of concret, as my wife reached out to point at somthing we heard a buzzing noise kinda like a bee. she retracted her hand becuase she thought there was a bee on her hand. when she brought her hand back to her body the buzzing noise stoped. We both looked and her hand and up and down our bodies and saw no insects. we thought surly it could not be her hand buzzing???? so she slowly reach out again and it started buzzing again! and it was only at a certain point when her hand was out far enough did it buzz. she quickly went in and out with her arm about 3 times and every time she put it out to a certain point it buzzed again. this all happend in the matter of 10 sec. then i reallized o crap thats static electricity we need to get off this mountain top now! our hair wasnt sticking up but thats all i need to hear. When we were going down about a 100 feet from the top my wife raised her hand straight up and it strated to buzz again! about 100 more feet and it did not do it again. i raised my hand to to see if it would do it and it didn’t , mabe she was a better conductor of electricity that day????more water in her system???? dont know. we saw some people hangin out near there cars mid way down the mountain we told them what happend and they said the same thing happend with there car antenna. No lightning struck near us, only in the far distance. crazy!
Comment by kevin G — August 21, 2009 @ 8:07 pm |
I read a book years ago about a fellow who was electrocuted by lightning through his phone.(land line) He didn’t die but it really scorched many of his inner organs. He also experienced strang telepathic powers after this incident. I was relating this story to a friend of my wifes as she is a telephone operator for over 40 years. She told of a time when lighting struck a power pole outside there home and she waited a couple minutes to call it in and when she called lightning struck the same pole again. She started to lay the phone down and fire shot out phone. It was a cordless phone. They heard some noise in the bathroom and went to check and the battery operated tooth brush was buzzing all around the sink. You can’t make some of this stuff up. Although the repairman didn’t believe the tooth brush story, not much he could say about the burned up phone.
Comment by Pat Edwards — August 30, 2009 @ 11:32 pm |