Struck by Lightning

[GutshotApe]

Byron Lacey, 40, of Sweet Home was fishing from the bank at Foster Reservoir near the Veteran's Cemetery friday evening. He had already caught "a bucket full of trout" when noticed a huge black cloud coming his way...it began to hail. Lacey got between a downed tree and an overhanging bank...

"I heard some thunder from way, way off, nothing to worry about" he said. "All of a sudden I saw this big flash of light and I was picking myself up from about 30 feet away from where I was."

At first he wasn't able to walk so he crawled 1/2 mile up to the road. He tried to flag down cars but nobody would stop. A pickup load of young men went by laughing. "They probably thought I was drunk" he said.

Finally other anglers helped him and an ambulance was summoned and took him to the hospital. He has a nickle-sized blister mark on one shoulder and one eyeball is sore. His wife says he has began repeating himself and he woke up several times friday night not knowing who he was. His doctor plans to conduct a brain scan next week. Lacey figures that there's probably nerve damage.

"Can't sue God," he said with a shrug.


Source: Eugene R-G 4/28/03

[The Fishing Geek]

Bucketful of trout? Sounds like God is a Gamie.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Geek... [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[ 04-28-2003, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: *** Clerk ]

[WildHawg]

Owwwwww....
I can sympathize with this guy. In 1980, while on a trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, my brother and I were running around taking pictures of each other standing over the edges of heinous cliffs.
The weather did not look threatening--low, gray clouds, but kinda humid for AZ. My little brother, who has as close to an afro as a white guy can have, tells me his hair is standing on end. I just laugh at him and tell him it's always standing on end. We walk out to another off the beaten path promontory, where he tells me to lean way out over this cliff (we were young ).
I pose looking over to the bottom of the earth when BOOM!!!!! I awoke fairly quickly to the weirdest tingling sensation in my head and left foot. I was dazed, but could stand up with help. My brother, upon seeing the flash, proceeded to run 100 yards or so away from me, before he looked back and said "you alright?"
Some brother!!!
I don't know why I wasn't hurled over the cliff to a very absolutely positively without a doubt ugly, closed casket funeral. But I wasn't.
He drove me to the lodge where the nurse looked me over, and told me to go see the Dr. as soon as I could. Never did... Still have a lump on me noggin, and a scar on my foot.
Other than a bad headache and some temporary vision problems, I was pretty muck OK--or was I?
Maybe that's what accounts for my multiple personalities?!?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA :tongue:

[ 04-28-2003, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: WildHawg ]

[Tilla]

Years ago my brother and I were backpacking in the Kings Canyon Nat'l Park crossing anther daily 10,000-12,000 foot pass in the afternoon when the usual afternoon thunderstorm would move in. Lightening started bouncing off the surrounding peaks that overlooked the saddle we were trying to get over. Nothing around for miles except jumbles of granite boulders. All of a sudden my brothers 2 piece fishing rod sticking out of his backpack starts buzzing! :shocked: We abandoned the packs and ran about 100 yds and crawled into a space in between the boulders for awhile. In a lull in the action we grabbed our stuff and hustled over the pass(difficult at 11,000+ feet).
After encountering a thunder and lightening storm everyday for 5 days when we reached each pass we called it quits. The next pass was 13,777 feet and the daily storm moved in at 10 AM. We fished for golden trout for awhile and headed downhill for 25 miles to the trailhead.

[crabbait]

Lightning is some spooky stuff. Good stories. Here's another:

My friend, John, and I were camped next to a snow park on a ridge top near Mt Adams archery elk hunting. John had killed an elk the day before and was going to enjoy a good sleep-in that morning while I was up an hour before dawn to give it another go.

While making coffee, I observed considerable lightning from a large thunderstorm. I quickly counted the seconds between the flash and the thunder clap and realized it was headed our way. I grabbed my coffee cup and stuck my head in Johns tent to tell him I was headed up to the rig to sit out the storm. He was warm in his bag and said he would chance it. "Suit yourself."

The truck was parked facing camp and I climbed in and fired it up to get the heater going and reached down to see if I could get anything on the radio. When I looked up, I was blinded by a huge flash of lightning that looked like it struck right in camp. Before I could react or even regain my eyesight the passenger door opened and in jumped John in his Tee-shirt and tidy whiteys. John was near hysteria and kept repeating "I should have listened to you". :shocked:

As the large white spot in my vision cleared, I could see a large tree across camp engulfed in flame. John was convinced that the whole ridgetop was going to burn including our camp. We had rain the day before and the drenching the thunderstrom started to put down convinced me that we would be ok. As soon as the dry moss under the branches burned the tree went out.

We checked it later that day. A swath 10" wide and 8" deep was missing from one whole side of the tree. Pieces of bark and layers of wood were blasted 40 yards from the tree. Sure am glad it didn't choose an aluminum tent pole instead of that tree!

[WildHawg]

I hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Campo California (Mexican Border) to Manning Provincial Park in BC in 1977. I was only sixteen at the time, and pretty bold. I remember a thunderstorm on Forrester Pass that was as wild as anything I've ever seen in the Rockies. Crawled up and into some rocks near the top which faced the storm and watched it roll over the top of me. A bolt hit some rocks 100 yards away from me, but I THOUGHT I was safe!! Well I was that time--but that same storm today would literally scare the pee right out of me!!! I have developed an irrational (but HEALTHY) fear of lightning in the intervening years :shocked: , and have been known to lay in ditches when a storm passes anywhere near any river I'm on!!!

[GutshotApe]

OK, here's my story:

My buddy Marty and I were trolling for kokanee at Odell Lake one warm, muggy spring day. The lake was like glass, no wind...but up on Diamond Peak/Red Peak to the south there were big black clouds and when we turned off the motor we could hear thunder. We noticed a school of kokanee were on top apparently feeding...rising & dimpling the smooth surface. So I cut the motor and we rigged up small lures and began casting into the fish. Marty decided to change lures so he broke off what he had on and leaned his rod up against the gunwales and began digging in his tackle box for another lure. I looked over at his rod and his 6' of slack monofilament was floating in the air as if attached to a balloon...but no balloon was there :shocked: . The line pointed up at the big black clouds that were now a lot closer and the line and the rod were covered with St. Elmo's Fire :shocked: ...a bluish electric aura...faintly buzzing with free electricity as it flickered and shifted up and down the rod & line. We both exclaimed "HOLY MOLEY!" (or a reasonable facsimile ) in unison, I fired up the big motor and we beat a hasty retreat to shore.

[Jennie@ifish]

Great stories!
I mean, not great... but interesting!

It's never great when you get hurt, I guess!

Jen

[Miss B Haven]

As close as I EVER want to be: Locking up through Oregon City during a storm (Labor Day Weekend- 1995). A nasty storm warning everyone in OC and West Linn to get indoors, ya right- we're in the boat on the river!
Anyway- almost to the top of the first lock and crack/boom! I was on the bow holding the lock rope- the wife was on the stern. We never even saw a flash (wierd huh?) but we both felt the heat on our faces! :shocked:

[ampersat]

they did a story on opb last week about people who have survived being struck by lightning. here's the link.

it does pretty strange stuff to the human body.

[Corkie Monster]

I too got to close to this stuff. I was fishing up at Twin Lakes in the Wallowas in 1998. I herd a thunder storm approaching and thought nothing of it. Soon it was right over the top of me and very loud. At this point I decided to head back to my car. While I was picking my stuff up from the dok I saw this flash, Like sombody flashed a camera in my eye's, the sound was unbearable. I too had to pick myself up from the ground and made a stagering dash to my car. When I touched the door handle of my car I got one heck of a shock. I don't think I was hit but I think it was to close for my confort. On the way out of the wallowas I was flying down the road, came around a corner and saw a cow, Bearly enough room to squeese by, as I was going by she turned her head and wammo, right int the drivers side hood. Got about 1/2 mile down the road, turned around to check on the cow, not a dang thing wrong with her. At this point, I shut the car off and just layghed at the string of events that just took place.

Summer of 2001 Bend/Fort Rock dist. myself and the rest of my Initial Attack crew where staged watching a Thunder Cell build, It finally went active and we drove to the general location of the storm. On our way to the top of the butte we had a strike nail a tree about 50yds infront of the truck. Same thing, a brite flash and extremely loud crack!!! as we watched the tree turn bright red for a moment. Sat there and waited a few moments, No fire and continued up the butte. We were on the butte for about 20 minutes then off to several fires this storm cuased.

Just some of my expierences :smile:

CM