Did you know that during peak storm season Venezuela's Lake "Maracaibo" experiences up to 280 lightning strikes an hour, that is one every 13 seconds, can you imagine one exceptional site that would be, but wait for a minute wait, wait, wait before you pack your bags and you rush off onto the next flight to "Caracas" spare a thought for your personal safety.
Lightning might be an impressive light show up
in the clouds, but if you and your selfie stick were in the wrong place and the
wrong time, the "Catatumbo lightning" could pose a pretty serious
health hazard.
As could any lightning, to be fair. As air
rain and ice are thrown around in Cumulonimbus clouds towering up to seven
kilometers high, static electricity buildup. Now you may choose yoga or a game
of squash or cuddling your cat to release tension, but when the potential
builds up in a storm their way of letting it all go is to discharge several
million volts of electricity, now to put that into context the electricity is
supplied by mains outlets at home in the USA is just 240 volts and those
high-voltage power lines with their danger of death signs only about half and
million volts. The Lightning is essentially a massive spark the electric
current extends down from the cloud super-heating the air that it passes
through until it's five times (5x) hotter than the surface of the Sun, turning
it into plasma which glows blindingly bright. It will seek out tall objects or
materials that can easily flow through so, water-filled trees or water-filled
people are ideal targets.
The
problem is, since the strike will only take about 1/10th of a second and will
be traveling about a third (1/3) the speed of light, there's no way of predicting
when or where it might touch down. So, with 100 lightning bolts streaking down
towards the earth every single second just what is the risk, you might have
heard that you have a one-in-a-million chance of being struck by lightning,
sounds pretty good odds, but that's only the probability of being struck in a
given year, across your whole lifetime you're looking at something a bit more
like a
Around
4000 people are reported to have been killed by lightning every year, although
that number doesn't include the undeclared deaths in rural areas of developing
countries but even with such scary odds, it might surprise you to learn that 9
out of every 10 lightning strike victims live to tell the tale and in the U.S.
at least and new lightning fatalities have dropped over the last few decades
from more than
Direct strikes have the potential to be the most damaging, since lightning tends to enter in the head and then travels all the way through the body to exit and discharge at the feet. Most of the electrical current will pass across the surface of the body, in what's known as a "Flashover", instantly vaporizing any moisture it encounters, which can have these somewhat disturbing effects of exploding the victim's clothes off, it can sometimes leave behind a lightning tree on the skin an intricate pattern of burst blood vessels showing the path that the current took. The heat of the current could also melt materials like polyester and hang around in metal jewelry causing fairly major burns, "Flashovers" help to discharge most of the lightnings energy but some electricity will opt, not to travel over the body but through it, back is where it can cause more serious and lasting damage and that is because of our internal machinery relies on electricity our brain, spinal cord, our entire nervous system is basically an intricate network of wiring along which nerve impulses, tiny electrical potentials pass at great speeds to control the action of every muscle in gland as well as coordinate our conscious and subconscious thoughts.
Adding a few
million extra volts to this network can not only send the recipients muscles
into sudden and uncontrollable of all spasms but it can burn out neurons and
shut down parts of the nervous system altogether, it can also stop the heart
from beating, although our hearts do have their own internal pacemaker and can
usually reset themselves, more worryingly it can shut down the breathing center
of the brain meaning you literally have no way of getting your lungs to inflate,
without oxygen getting into the blood the heart can be sent into a more fatal
arrest, it's seriously scary stuff but there is a relatively simple solution, CPR
(Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) many lightning-strike survivors own their lives
are the dedicated actions of friends or strangers who perform mouth-to-mouth to
keep their blood full of oxygen until medical help can arrive and there's
little risk, the first responders despite lightnings immense power once it's
gone, it's gone there's no lingering electrical charge, so, the next time you find
a hiker lying naked and smoldering in a field after a storm don't start
searching for UFOs or snapping a photo donating a few of your breaths could
mean the difference between life and death.
Sadly,
though, it's not all good news about three-quarters of all lightning, survivors
are thought to suffer lasting physical or mental disability.
Our
Squishy brains are just all too scrambled by vast current and people can be
left paralyzed or with personality changes in PTSD (Post-traumatic stress
disorder) while you are more likely to survive a lightning strike it certainly
isn't something to put yourself in the path of and contrary to what you might
have heard rubber shoes won't necessarily keep you safe and lightning most
certainly can strike the same place twice.
Unfortunately,
the only surefire way of surviving a lightning storm is to be nowhere near the
storm at all.
I
will know that have you ever had a close call with Thor.
let me know in the comments below:
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