Lightning and Me
Two elk hunters were found dead in Conejos County, Colorado just a few miles from the Colorado-New Mexico border on September 18. Andrew Porter of North Carolina and Ian Stasko of Utah, both 25 years old, had been missing for a week but were discovered mid-September by authorities who determined that the two had died after being struck by lightning. A third hunter, whose name has yet to be released, also succumbed to a lightning strike in the same area just a week later. He died on Friday September 26. Reading of these incidents reminded me just how deadly life in the backcountry can be and just how much I’ve always feared lightning.
I’m not sure where this fear stems from but it developed as a kid and ranked right up there with quicksand, being eaten by a shark, and swallowed by a snake as one of the ways I didn’t want to meet my end. I think I’ll blame really bad B movies on the basic cable of my youth for these unfounded fears. I write “unfounded” because the chance of an individual being struck by lightning is about one in a million and the odds of being eaten by a shark are one in 25 million. Odds on being swallowed by a snake or drowning in quicksand are so astronomical that my searching the internet found no real information.
I used to stay with my grandparents in Meridian, Texas a great deal when I was a kid. The Meridian of my youth was extremely remote, and my grandparents spent a vast fortune on an antenna that stood a good story and a half above their roof line in order to get TV channels from Waco, Dallas, and Forth Worth. That antenna was struck by lightning four times during my visits and each time I remember waking to a sound so loud that it literally shook the house. These strikes would, of course, destroy the antenna and all televisions connected to them. This happened so often that my grandfather had trouble getting insurance to cover such accidents.
I’ve witnessed lighting strike objects in close proximity to me on several occasions. Once, at Boy Scout Summer Camp, I witnessed lighting strike the top of a distant pine tree. It more or less vaporized that tree into a cloud of smoke and sawdust. I remember at the time thinking, “That could have been me” despite the fact that the tree was probably 40 feet high and I stood, maybe, five foot tall in boots. I saw lighting incinerate a small mesquite tree not 50 feet before me while I was driving on my friend’s deer lease north of Ozona, Texas. My friend Joel and I were driving back to camp to wait out a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed and the tree before us ceased to exist.
Despite that proximity, that was not the closest I’ve been to a lightning strike. The closest I’ve ever come was a year later on that same lease. Once again, Joel and I were driving back to camp to wait out a thunderstorm. We reached a gate, and I rushed out to open it. As we hadn’t seen any lightning, we both thought it safe to open. It wasn’t. Lightning struck the fence down the line, and it jumped to me. I remember seeing a distant flash then blue streaks jump from the fence at me. A heavy shock reverberated through me and my fingers felt like they were on fire. I shook it off and jumped back it the truck. Joel said he saw the blue streaks hit me and thought I was a goner for sure. I wasn’t but I was so happy for the next week that I told my primary physician I wanted to get off anti-depressants and try electric shock therapy. She thought that request pretty stupid and suggested the lightning might have hit my brain a little too hard.
I was relating this story the other day when my daughter-in-law (or is it step-daughter-in-law or maybe it’s my stepson’s wife…damn, being in a blended family is tough) Kameron told me her great grandfather was killed by lightning. He was sitting on the front porch with his children when lightning struck him. It killed him instantly but only delivered a mild shock to the three children sitting next to him.
Again, the odds that I’ll be killed by lightning are pretty slim but that doesn’t mean I know it’s out there waiting for me. That and quicksand. Given my luck, I’ll probably die via a lightning strike to me while I’m stuck in quicksand.
This piece first appeared in the Fredericksburg Standard.
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