Survival stories are fascinating and inspiring to hear, but they are also scary at the same time. For instance, a man from the UK playing a video game inside his house suddenly got hit by a lightning strike. He was rushed to the hospital and was observed for eight hours before being allowed to go home.
According to National Weather Service, nine out of 10 people who got hit by lightning survive. However, may leave with various degrees of disability. In the US, there were 27 fatalities recorded between 2009 to 2018 from a total of 270 cases.
UK Man Rushed to the Hospital After Lightning Strike
According to Aiden Rowan, in a post on Instagram, he was happily playing video games on his PlayStation in his living room at around 10:30 pm on Sept. 5 when he suddenly heard a loud crack followed by a heavy sensation across his body. After five hours at the hospital, doctors confirmed that he was struck by lightning through the open window.
He told Metro that it took him about a minute to come back to his sense as he felt very confused after the incident. He went upstairs and asked his husband for a wet towel as he felt a burning sensation in his arm. His husband was so shocked and immediately brought him to the hospital.
He was rushed to an assessment room, where nine doctors from different departments came to look at him. They said it did look like a lightning strike and put on a heat monitor and did some blood tests.
The doctors believed that the lightning bounced off the water through the window because the ground had been too hard due to the heatwave in the UK. Fortunately, he remained unscathed, except for a few cuts on his left arm and a small burn on his hand.
5 Ways Lightning Strikes People
It is not every day that someone gets hit by a lightning strike. But here are five ways lightning strikes people, according to National Weather Service:
- Direct Strike- This type is not as common as other types, but it mostly happens to victims in open areas. A portion of the current moves along just the skin surface and a portion moves through the body, which may cause burns and is fatal.
- Side Flash- Also known as side splash, this type occurs when lightning strikes a taller object near the victim, wherein the current jumps from the taller object to the victim who is a foot or two near the object.
- Ground Current- This type can travel on garage floors with a conductive material and affects a much larger area. Ground current is often fatal to livestock because of their large body span.
- Conduction- Most indoor casualties are to conduction because lightning can travel long distances via metal surfaces and wires.
- Streamers- People caught on streamers are at the trick of being injured or killed by lightning because this object could provide a path to the ground where the person is at.
What Happens When A Person Gets Hit With Lightning Strike?
Retired emergency medicine doctor and lightning researcher Mary Ann Cooper told Reader's Digest that lightning survivors could suffer a variety of short- and long-term effects. Some of these include cardiac arrest, confusion, dizziness, deafness, seizures, headaches, memory deficits, distractibility, personality changes, and chronic pain.
Other survivors typically experience personality and mood changes with bouts of depression. Cooper said that lightning could have rewired the brain in a way like how electric shock could scramble a computer.
Cooper and other researchers noted that there are mysteries to be solved in the future.
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