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 1 in 13,500 chance and since no man is an island, the likelihood of someone you know being affected by a lightning strike is more than one in a thousand which suddenly makes it all seem a lot more real.

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 450 in the early 90s to less than 50 today. One of the main reasons that so many survive when they're caught short by the skies short-circuit is the shocking speed of the encounter yes your body may become the unwitting host of several million volts but only for the nearest fraction of a second then that helps to limit but not entirely prevent sadly injury.

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.

 



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