Ever been hit by lightning?

[Aragorn]

In light of my 24 hour repair of a major phone system for a casino up here that was hit by lightning and "smoked", it brought back memories. Me and 2 of my friends were hit by lightning several years ago(I know...so that explains it ) while about to summit Fairview Dome in Yosemite. We were 900ft "off the deck" when we got caught in the storm. Anyway, I know some of you live in areas where lightning strikes are quite....spectacular and I was wondering if anyone else has been hit. How'd you feel afterwards? It was pretty strange for me.

[FISHme]

No, but I did HANG myself by accident once.
We were swinging into a canal off a platform but the rope was to long so that if you held the bottom of the rope you would hit the water when you swang out.
Well I coiled up the rope a little and jumped off the platform with a great thrust of speed , I swung way out and let go of the rope but the rope somehow wrapped around my head and mouth.
The next thing I know I am swinging back towards shore by my head with the rope wrapped around it. I swang in towards shore and then started swinging back out before I could get the rope untangled and then I dropped into the water.
I had braces on my teeth and they gouged a deep hole inside the cheek on one side and everything turned black and white for a few seconds .
Man I hate it when that happens

Arogorn, what happened to you when you got struck ?
I know I came real close to getting struck several times , we had a ranch in Florida where it is real flat (lightning capital of the world ) and once I was opening the door to the house trailer and got a little ZAP through the door nob when the lightning struck on the other side of the trailer and after that strike there were 2 dead cows where the lightning hit the ground and you could see where the lightning went through the ground and struck the 2 cows.The lightning traveled like 20 to 30 feet through the ground in different directions to where the cows were standing. I was about 30 yards away from them.
Also many more cool stories like wacching a tree get hit , the tree snaps in half horizontally and then the cow 30 feet from the tree gets dusted.

Ok , enough from me on the off topic, sorry
Mabe someone else has some cool stories .

[Aragorn]

FISHme,
Man that had to hurt! GEEZ! When we got struck, Ed(The Lead) and I were anchored in an my buddy Walter was about 100ft below. We had 1 pitch left to do. The storm blew in fast and all we could do was "hunker down". When lightning began touching down on all the peaks in the area, Ed and I knew we were...screwed. I yelled down to Walter to hang on, looked at Ed, Ed looked at me and just then BANG! I remember Ed and I both screaming out and then...I woke up. Ed was still out cold. I shook Ed and he came to. I grabbed hold of the rope and tugged 3 times to let Walter below know we were still here. Ed was totally incoherent. He was saying "I can't feel my hands! You'll have to lead the last pitch!" Which I told him he was crazy, I wasn't ready to lead at that time. Then he started saying "We need to bail. We'll rappel back down!" Which was absurd. We had 75 ft to the summit and 900ft to the bottom. I told him we'll get Walter up and maybe by that time, he'll have feeling in his hands. Walter climbed up to us crying. He thought that after he felt the "shock" and the rope go slack...we were dead(can you imagine being 900ft up on a cliff ledge alone with your friends dead?). Ed was still...numb, so I managed to climb to the summit, anchor in, and the rest got up. What an experience. Ed got a burn mark in his butt from sitting on a carabiner that we still laugh about that one. Funny thing was, neither of us felt any pain during the ordeal. Drama in real life, eh?

OK, maybe not lightning related...anyone got any other cool "near death" experiences?

[Reinhold]

I almost suffocated when the bottom of my climbing tree stand fell to the ground during deer season a few years ago.

I had forgotten to tie the upper and lower halves of the stand together, and while moving around, it fell 10 feet to the ground. I had a strap tied around my abdomen and around the tree.

I decided to lower myself to the ground by the strap, but it got hung up on bark, and I was left hanging about 3 feet off the ground. The strap had cinched up around my chest.

I initially chuckled about how silly this looked, but soon I found I couldn't breathe because of the tight strap constricting my chest. My knife was in my backpack up on the tree stand.

Very quickly, I discovered that this seemingly harmless gaff could wind up with me being found dead, hanging from the tree. I looked up, saw my backpack strap hanging over the edge of the tree stand.

I was holding myself up on the safety strap to breathe better. I knew I had one chance to grab the backpack and try to pull it down to me. I could then cut the constricting strap and fall to the ground. If I dropped the pack, I was probably dead. None of my hunting partners were within the sound of my voice.

I reached up and snagged the pack, catching it as it fell off the stand. I retrieved my knife from inside the pack, cut the strap, and I caught my breath for the next five minutes.

I now wear a climbing harness with carabiners holding me to the safety strap. I could hang by the harness until I froze to death, but at least I wouldn't suffocate. I also carry my knife on my belt.

[SPasse]

Aragorn,

Well maybe not hit but some very close calls.

I used to service radio transmitter towers.

In 1984 I was on top of a 200’ tower (repairing previous lightning damage) on top of one of our Front Range Mountains. Well that year was really stormy, and for those of you that have never been on a tower, lets just say that it takes a little bit of time to climb up (or down) one of them.

I went up the tower with an assistant during what I thought was going to be a break in the weather.

I had just finished installing the new antenna when a new storm came over the hills. Before I got down the tower, the storm was in full force.

In addition to almost wetting myself on the way down, I spent the next 30 minutes “hugging” my partner, standing in the only available shelter – the transmitter shack. This was basically just a 5’ x 5’ tin shed, sitting on a bald mountain. The lighting hits were so close that you could see them dissipating on the ground right in front of you.

Finally, we thought the worst was over until one final strike vaporized the new antenna and fried the transmitter in the radio room that we were standing in.

I guess I have seen a lot of lightning damage.

Regards,

Scott Passe

[Aragorn]

Scott,

That's some wild stuff. Lightning's pretty crazy. We've been having daily thunderstorms out here in the Sierra for the past week. One of my customers took a direct hit last Tuesday and literally smoked their PBX phone system(casino/hotel w/ 400 phones). Needless to say I haven't gotten too much sleep since July 3rd. Finally got'em 99.9% operational as of today.

[FISHme]

My worst experience , YES there was a situation that was worst than the HANGING.
I was a smoker back when I was a youngster of 18 and was doing some weed killing with a spray . Well to make a long story short, I got the weed killer into my system through what I guess was through contact with the spray on my hands and then smoking .
Well lets put it this way, that same week on the news was an incident where a guy got weed killer into his system and DIED.
This was the nastiest experience of my life , I was real close to being a gonner.
It was even worse than having a radiator cap comming of and getting hit in the face with boiling hot radiator water or the time I got blasted by another radiator in the chest and shoulder.Those were pretty nasty but not life threatening.
Or I guess there was the time I got bit by a BLACK WIDOW spider , that was also pretty darn Nasty as well, it bit me just to the upper left side of my chest near my shoulder. I didn't see or feel it when it bit me but when I got home from work and went to take a shower I looked in the mirror and saw this huge welt and thought , WHAT THE HELL IS THAT . From that point on the venom entered my system and attacked all my joints and muscles and lasted for about a day. Let me tell ya, NASTY, NASTY.
You might think I'm crazy but all these incidents and I didn't go to a doctor for any of them.
Or the time when I was breaking a horse and he bucked me off and slammed his hind hoof into my leg. OK , I will stop, THAT WAS NOT LIFE THREATENING, ouch though, I had a horse shoe mark on my leg for many months.
But,
I'm ALIVE , I'm ALIVE !!!!! Thank God !!!

[FishKid]

1. I went fishing with my sister and my friend, and clouds started comming in, so we headed home. There is a HUGE hill on the way home, and on the way up, lightning landed 10 or so Feet away (I dont know why it didnt hit me on my steel bike) It was so close that I felt the heat, the sound was deafening, and the light so bright that I almost lost control of my bike!

2. I fell off of a dresser onto a rocking horse, cracked my head open!

3. I went fishing with my dad way upstate, on a water fall. I was 4 or 5 at the time, and I got bored so I decided to do something I saw on a mickey mouse cartoon. (gee, you'd think beavis and butthead was bad!) I was walking, just using my heels, on a ledge that was just wide enough to fit my heels on, I made it about 6-8 feet out, and I slipped. It was atleast 100 ft down! to jagged rocks and shallow water! some how my dad caught me!

4. When visiting my grandma in illonois (stupid me) I decide to go looking for snakes. And oh boy did I find a snake! I found a ~5 foot long cotton mouth! (stupid me) I go to pick it up!!! Well, you know what happened! It missed me by about 1"! I would have died because there wasnt any hospital anywhere near by!

Looks like I have 5 lives left!

mark

[FISHme]

That's right Mr.Cat 5 more
Oh what about the time I was pressure cleaning an overhang on my dads 2 story apartment building . I was walking backwards on the first story part of the building spraying the overhang and didn't realize that the first floor of the building ended and walked backwards right off the building YIKES
Man , the more I remember the more there is to tell Got bit by scorpions, rats , snakes !!! Caught a pygmy rattle snake once and it twisted right out of my hand in a flash but luckily I hauled butt away from it.
I was a boyscout and was chasing an armadillo and ended up face to face with a 6 foot rattler coiled and ready to strike just a couple feet away. FREAK ME THE ---- out

[FishKid]

take it one day at a time, right guys? While we are talking about this, I cant help but think about the 20 X-large goldfish (well 14 now) in my S. Nattereri tank My lord they are viscious! Im spending $5 a week feeding them now, I cant imagine when they are adults!


Oh yeah, I have another one! Ever have a bottle rocket go off in your eye?? yowwee!! Some one broke half the tail of ;) and when it lit, It danced through the sky, in a zig-zag fashion, hit the gutter on the house, got stuck for about half a second, when it got loose it zoomed right at my face and poked my in the eye, I fell back and it blew up on top of me! BTW, that brings it down to 4 lives! I better talk to a vet!

mark

[Mikeman]

I remember I used to go to my grampas farm, and I was wondering around and I stumbled on to a rattler, I managed to distract it with a stick, then hall @ss, if it would have bit me, I would have been 5 miles away from his house, another 30 miles away from a hospital

[coralman]

I was almost drown, hold on let me explain, yes i can swim. One day I was Lifegaurding at the local YMCA, and a fairly large man jumped off the diving board. Well I geuss he coundn't swim and he started to go under so I dove in WITHOUT A RESCUE TUBE. I got to him and he grabbed on to me for dear life, you be suprised how strong people can be when they think they are gonna die. So some how i got behind him , still not sure how i got loose, and pulled him to the side. From know on when ever i gaurd i carry a rescue tube.When you think you are gonna die you get a huge rush!

[FishKid]

Yeah, when your scared, its cool! I remember when I got good at football, I went from 5th string defense, to 1st string defense in 1 year! and that first game, boy let me tell ya, I was scared out of my mind! There was enough adrenaline in me to kill a horse! I think my stats were: 35.5 tackles 1 forced fumble 3 blocked field goals and 1 blocked punt (can anyone say M V P??) Not to brag, but every game was like that

mark

[FISHme]

Or how about the time I was in the Florida Keys.
I was with my cousin and 2 girls. We rented a house boat for the weekend just for a place to stay , not to navigate.
I had my boat but no anchor so we borrowed one off the house boat and went out to the reef for a beautiful day of diving.
I only went diving a few times before and am not certified.
We got to the reef and boy it was beautiful. We dropped anchor and my cousin and I suited up and hit the reef.
Well just after getting into the water I notice the anchor has unhooked from the line and the boat is drifting away with the girls. They didn't know what was going on and neither did my cousin.
Well I decided to go for the anchor because without it we would not be able to do any more diving plus it wasn't my anchor so I wanted to make sure I returned it to the house boat.
I almost drown getting that anchor to the boat because the current was going one way but the wind was blowing the boat the other way.
I had to swim about 50 yards dragging the anchor.
I was determined to get to the boat and I did. Just barely.I was treading water with all the gear and the anchor
My cousin was chasing down a permit with his spear gun and didn't no what I was doing.
I re anchored the boat but was totally wasted with a pounding head ache and totally exhasted . I had to lay down for quite a while to get my self back to normal. That ended my day of diving. Mean while the girls and my cousin had a wonderful rest of the afternoon while I couldn't do a thing but lay down.
I really didn't think I was going to make to the boat . That was the scariest moment of my life. All because I would not let the anchor go . But the main thing is that ,
I'm alive, I'm alive !!!!!!

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[FishKid]

Fishme, you should be a writer! your very good at making up stories! J/K


Mark

[FISHme]

BELIEVE ME , THESE ARE NOT MAKE BELIEVE STORIES.
These things are real.
I kinda figured some people might start to think that jeesh , that guy has had quite a few dramatic incidents.
The funny thing is that I have never had a broken bone !!!!
How about the time I ran a 1/8 inch metal rod right through my hand. That happened about a year ago.
I was trying to clear out the end of a caulking gun tip with a metal rod that we have at work . I had to grind the rod off on a grinding wheel because it had a curve on the end so grinding it made it straight.
Well when I ground the rod it put a bevel on the end .
I unscrewed the end off the cauk tube and started to run the metal rod through the tip from the small hole end towards the end with the bigger opening.
I was holding the tip in my right hand and when I gave the rod a few jabs into the tip the beveled end caught the side of the tip and went right through my hand. There wa sclear silicone in the caulk gun so when it slipped through my hand it went through VERY fast and clean. Again , no doctor and I actually went right back to work and didn't miss a day. The next day there was absolutlely NO pain.
I have pictures if you want I can find them and post here when I have more time.
But please , these are not made up stories.Just read this, HOW could I make up somethig like this. I have been through a few things in my days.
How about the time when I got divorced, that was when my heart was broken. But that was almost 20 years ago so it has healed.That one hurt .

[FishKid]

hey man, I said I was joking! No need to defend yourself! ;)

"HOW could I make up somethig like this." If you put your mind to it, you can make up great stories


Im reminded of the time I swollowed a big peice of hot dog, and it got caught in my throat. It was down deep, I couldnt breathe the littlest bit. My mom started panicking. I was choking for a while, 45 second I estimate, and it was really really starting to hurt, then I remembered how to to the heimlick manuver to myself, and fell onto the table, so it hit just below my sternum (hurt like a *&^ of a &*^%$!) but that worked. That was the scariest thing that ever happened to me! I think I was 10 when that happened...


mark

[Aragorn]

OK,

Here's another one for you guys. When I was about 14, I was on a field trip to Sunol Regional Park. There's a place called Flag Rock that has a cliff on the west side about 300ft high. Ed Moser and I decide we're going to climb it...without ropes. Anyway, I'm up about 150ft and nicely "wedged" in a chute facing outwards. Note that the rock is really bad sedimentary rock. The rock under my right foot gives way and I find myself sliding down this cliff(150ft above the deck). I was a goner. Suddenly my feet "plant" squarely on a ledge no wider than 6 inches. No lie. Nothing below but air. I inch my way over to a wider spot on the ledge and proceed to collapse. That was scary.

[FISHme]

Aragorn, That IS scary.
I can't understand rock climbing , seems TO dangerous for me .But then again if there were mountains in South Florida I would probably have more near disaster stories to add to my list
Oh , and the time I was hunting with my dad. I was about 12 . We were dove hunting in South Florida back when there weren't SO many people , BACK IN THE 60'S.
We were in an area that was close to homes but it was an area that was legal to hunt.
Some guy in a house nearby loaded up a semi-auto 22 and opened fire into our general direction. My dad jumped on top of me to protect me and the bullets were hitting the ground all around us. We were lucky.
The police found the house where the shooting came from with spent shells laying all around but the guy denied shooting at us.


Good thread!!!!!
I'm sure there are others with some good true stories.

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