quote:

As safety concerns for the former New Orleans Saints player increased, PointsBet released a statement acknowledging it was aware of the situation.

They gotta be kidding

I wonder how many are from Florida and have a golf club fused to their hand?

If I had to count the number of times I “survived“ an event… I’d run out a synapses trying to keep track.

BTW… I became a caddy at a country club where Lee Trevino was struck by lightning during the US Open in Chicago. Those big oaks were huge, lightning rods and the wet grounds made for interesting dancing.

Roy Sullivan, a Park Ranger in Shenandoah National Park, was struck by lightning SEVEN times during his career, and survived them all.
Amazing.

I've been within about 1000 feet of three people getting struck by lightning.
1973 Moodus CT, 1995 Kansas City MO, 2002 Waterbury CT.

The first two were in parking lots, were direct hits and were instantly fatal.
The third survived as the bolt struck a tree first and then jumped to him.

For the survivor, I can't say if it affected his sense of humor, though

I was struck once. Just not directly.

I saw the strike come down in a field, cross the ground, and hit me in the right foot. Numbed my right leg for about 20 minutes.

My sense of humor was unaffected. Or maybe it was, I do enjoy a good pun. Or a bad one.

I got involved with a 44 KV power line when I was 14. Ended up spending months in the hospital, got 144 square inches of skin grafts and half my left little toe blown off.

I still have a sense of humor.

I was very nearly hit by lightening when I was 17.

My family was out for a Sunday sail when it was cut short by the early arrival of a front, with small craft warning winds, rain, thunder, and lightening.

After mooring the boat, I was walking along the dock, sopping wet, with a sail bag containing an aluminum paddle over my shoulder. Yes, I know now that was none too smart.

The next thing I know I am flat on the dock feeling like the sensation you get when you touch a 9 volt battery to your tongue to see if it still has a charge. Except it was my entire body and it felt more like a 90 volt battery, a sensation that completely passed in less than two minutes.

Sister was screaming her head off (she thought it hit me in the head), Father is running toward me, it was pandemonium until they discovered I was okay, save for a patch of burnt hair and a slightly melted paddle.

Father later concluded the bolt contacted the paddle and arced straight to the dock without actually hitting me. His pronouncement was something like "Once again your guardian angel saves you" (this was a regular occurrence for me, even to today).

I thought the ad funny.

So my fellow lightening rods, sit down, shut the fuck up, and stop being bitchy, whiny two year olds who need a cookie, their blankey, and a nap.

I remember a school friend getting struck by lightning while he was paddling in the waves on a crowded beach. Mind you, this was in North Wales, and it WAS raining slightly - you take your fun where you can find it in Welsh weather.

I went to see him in hospital. He had an open wound extending from the right side of his scalp, all the way down his neck and upper torso and down to his thigh - a gap, and then it continued to his right foot, which was almost totally charred off. His right eye had 'cooked' and had to be removed and he was permanently deaf in the right ear. Luckily he was left-handed, because he'd lost the use of his right arm and hand, although it gradually came back over the ensuing years. He told he'd remembered nothing of the event, except the smell like the fairground dodgems.

He died a couple of years back in his early 70's. having a had a full and busy life.

quote:

Originally posted by bettysnephew:
One of the guys I worked with in the food factory was previously in the farm equipment service industry here in Iowa. He serviced and repaired electronics on the high tech combines, planters and GPS units in the field during planting and harvest seasons. He was struck by lightning twice while doing his job. Both events were witnessed by others and he was hospitalized each time for burns. None of the rest of our maintenance crew was particularly comfortable working with him when he had to do electrical repairs. Imagine that! I always helped him as I figured a third time was almost impossible.

So how bad was your lightening strike?

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
I got involved with a 44 KV power line when I was 14. Ended up spending months in the hospital, got 144 square inches of skin grafts and half my left little toe blown off.

I still have a sense of humor.

Back in the 1980s I worked as a graphic artist and photographer. The man who serviced our digital Linotype machine and associated laser printer and I became friends. One day Steve (his name) told me about when he worked as a Xerox 9700(?) Certified Repair Technician for Xerox.

Apparently there was a massive capacitor in those things that needed to be discharged before you mucked about with the electronics. There was a specific procedure to follow and Steve, being a former active duty Marine, followed the procedure. Right up to when the screwdriver he was using to disconnect one of the leads arced the between the positive and negative poles of the capacitor. It picked him up and threw him partly through an interior office wall (you know those crap walls subdividing most of corporate America, metal studs 24" OC, 1/2" drywall) and melted 8" of the 16" screwdriver he was using to the top of the capacitor. His colleagues had it mounted for him as a "safety award."

Known of three. One, a high school math teacher and two of his friends were on a golf course. Struck, teacher and one of his friends survived.

Second one, he was one of my customers out west in a car dealership. Guy came in, had a shuffle and speech problem, I thought he was a stroke victim. One day he saw my fire gear as I had to switch cars out at the dealership and remarked that he had been a Firefighter and was struck by lightning and this was the result. He said his mind worked fine but communication and motor skills were damaged.

Third one, a technician at the last dealership I worked at. Ground strike, he was the secondary target. Shook him up a bit and kinda screwed up his speech and thought process for a few days. His fifteen minutes of fame was being interviewed a couple days later on local TV news. We nicknamed him Sparky after that.

I was manning a fire lookout tower one night many years ago when a storm came through. The tower took a direct hit with me inside. Blew out the windows and turned the shutters (made from 2X12s) into splinters. I'm not ashamed to admit that I soiled myself.

Not many things scare me nowadays, but lightning is one of them. I don't take any chances with it.

My father was sitting on a covered wooden front porch that had a steel roof. Lightning struck the porch and blew it off the front of the house. He was thrown out into the yard but not hurt.

We have enough to form our own support group.

Had lightning strike about 15 feet away. I think it was the loudest thing I ever heard.

I've seen lightning before. I too am offended. How insensitive.

Hi, I'm Para and I've been close to lightning.

{unison} Hi, Para.

Hi. Hey there.

So, anyhoo I can give you an exact date on this one, since I posted about it in this forum immediately after it happened. I even took a screenshot of the radar and posted it. August 19, 2005 at approximately 4:30 PM.

I was driving on Lawrenceville Highway during a thunderstorm and it was raining like Jesus hisself was manning the buckets above. Windshield wipers going ninety to nothin' and not having the slightest effect on matters.
The rain started to come in sheets, letting off and then slapping my truck. The wind picked up and I felt the rear end of my truck shift sideways maybe a foot or so and while I was contemplating this, a bolt of lightning struck the top of a power pole with a puff of smoke and a shower of splinters. Indescribably loud. I'd estimate the distance at less than 75 feet.

The big red arrow says "I was right freakin' here, man, and BOOM!!"

Imagine being such a pathetic, hopeless, little pussy that not only are you not ashamed but proud that someone's words or opinions upset you so.