ONETIME METEOROLOGIST WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
While the odds of being hit are extremely low, lightning is unpredictable. It can lurk far from where you think danger lives. Floridians are trained to listen for thunder. The savvier of them know to count the seconds between seeing lightning and hearing a rumble (for every five seconds, the lightning is 1 mile away). But lightning defies those expectations. It can strike 10 miles away from a cloud.
A lucky strike
Church said he couldn’t hear any thunder from the jetty. It was drizzling. And yet he got hit — hard. As he lay on his back in the dark on Jan. 7, Church, a martial arts teacher, tried to move but couldn’t — a common reaction to lightning. It short-circuits your body. After a time, he flipped himself onto his stomach but couldn’t get up. He felt a surge of liquid pour out of his belly. Blood.
Then he slowly crawled to his tackle box and tried to open it. That’s when he noticed two of his fingers — the right ring finger and pinkie — were almost entirely gone. He used his thumbs to snap it open, grabbed his phone and called 911.
“I just got hit by lightning,” he told the 911 operator. “I lost two fingers. They are completely gone,” he added later between moans. “Everything is starting to hurt a little bit now.”
Church was lucky: the lightning missed his heart. Most people hit by lightning die because their hearts stop. But it still left lasting damage. The lightning hit his fishing pole and exploded the metal sinker toward his face. Because he was resting the pole near his right hip, the force of the lightning shoved it into his stomach. His elbow had been against his hip so the current traveled there and along his forearm. It left his body through his two fingers.
He spent nine hours in surgery. Doctors cut open his stomach and took out half of his small and large intestines, which had been burned and damaged. Then they sewed up his fingers. His stomach, arm and wrist still have burn marks. His rain jacket was shredded. His eardrums had burst.
Six months later, he said he made it a point to enjoy life just a little more, even though, with no insurance, he is still paying his medical bills, and storms can easily spook him. He takes weekends off, and hangs with his grandchildren. “I just pay attention to life more,” he said.
Scars inside and out
For Falk Weltzien, the worst almost happened. His heart stopped for several minutes. Weltzien was about to kiteboard on Vilano Beach, next to St. Augustine, with his 14-year-old son the afternoon of Oct. 1, 2012. There were no black clouds or thunder; it was overcast.
Luckily, a nurse was walking down the beach and started performing CPR. Weltzien, 39 at the time, was foaming at the mouth and turning purple. In the hospital, tests were run and burns treated that ran across the back of his neck and left forearm.
The worst pain came a short while later, he said. His back felt as if it were burning. “It was the nerves healing,” he said, a nerve condition called neuropathy. “It lasted 30 days and it was excruciating pain. Painkillers didn’t help. It was nonstop, the worst.”
His left arm still has nerve damage and his eardrums were damaged, something he discovered getting on a plane shortly after the incident. The ear pressure was almost unbearable, he said. He also noticed he felt winded when he kiteboarded or surfed. After running tests and X-rays, doctors noticed something about his left lung.
“One half is completely black,” he said. “I only have half a lung working there.”
Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, a professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an expert on lightning injuries, said lightning can cause a wide range of damage, from tingling and numbness to cardiac arrest and lasting brain injury. About two-thirds of people lose consciousness, she said. Fewer than half suffer marks on their skin. And most are hurt by electricity as the current travels through the ground. The Weather Service estimates only 10 percent of those hit by lightning die.
It’s not a club anyone wants to join, but survivors often crave one another’s company. This gave rise to Lightning Strike & Electric Shock Survivors International, which has members from around the United States and in 13 countries.
The most common injury is a concussionlike brain injury, Cooper said. She added that memory problems, nerve damage and chronic pain were also typical and could last a lifetime.
That’s what happened to Cameron Poimboeuf, a Charlotte, N.C., resident, who was struck last July near Clearwater. Cameron, then 15, was playing Pokemon Go with a friend. As they ran for shelter from an approaching storm, he was hit and his heart stopped. Cassandra Thomas, a pediatric nurse standing on a balcony, saw it happen and raced down nine flights of stairs and across the beach to reach him. She did CPR for about 20 minutes, with the help of an off-duty officer.
Predictions were dire: Cameron would not recover or his brain would be seriously damaged.
But he lived and largely recovered. “It’s hard not to see God in that,” his mother, Karen Poimboeuf, said. Cameron still suffers from invisible wounds, post-traumatic stress disorder, nerve pain, mood swings, sleeplessness and anxiety. His friend also was hit and suffered shortterm leg immobility because of the shock to the nerves, but is fine.
For Weltzien, any lingering pain is pushed aside. He still kiteboards regularly and plays golf. “I’m not really scared,” he said. “I believe things happen for a reason.”
A weatherman’s report
Brad Sussman’s lightning bolt was forged in irony. “I knew everything about lightning,” he said. That’s because he was chief meteorologist at a Jacksonville station and sat on the county’s lightning safety board back then, in the early 1990s.
One afternoon, rain was pounding his house and Sussman saw an open window on the screened porch. He walked over to the metal window frame and put his right hand on it. Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back 18 feet away.
“My 2 1/2-year-old son says, ‘Daddy, that was funny. Do that again,’” said Sussman, who now sells insurance in Cleveland. Sussman was speechless; he literally couldn’t talk. A neighbor heard the boom and walked into the house. “How could I be struck by lightning?” Sussman told him. “I’m a meteorologist.”
The evidence was on the porch roof: a burned hole. The lightning had traveled across to the window frame. Sussman walked away with only a small burn on his right shoulder From 2006 through 2016, 352 people in the United States were killed by lightning strikes, and many more were seriously injured. What should you do when a thunderstorm is in the air? Here are tips from the National Weather Service.
Are you inside?
Lightning can sneak up on you through plumbing and wires. Don’t wash hands, dishes or take a shower. Don’t use your computer. Stay away from windows, doors and porches.
Thunder means lightning is close by, even if it sounds far away. Take shelter immediately in a sturdy building. No building nearby? Get inside a car (but not a convertible).
Keep the windows up and don’t touch the ignition, radio or steering wheel. On a boat? Go inside the cabin. No cabin? Lie low.
You never want to be the tallest object. Wait 30 minutes until the last rumble to go outside. Lightning can strike 10 miles from a storm.
Are you outside? Are you camping?
Amanin Florida died this month when a lightning storm broke out while he was camping. Avoid open fields and the tops of hills or ridges. Stay away from tall, isolated trees.
If you are in the water, get out. Avoid contact with metal. Metal and water do not attract lightning, but they are conductors of electricity.
Most courses in Florida have sirens to alert players that a lightning storm is on the way. Holding a club aloft in a storm is particularly unwise. But in fact, more people have been killed while playing soccer than while playing golf.
Farmhands and ranch workers have been the most frequent victims of deadly lightning: Of those who died from 2007 to 2016, 31 percent held those jobs. Roofers also face high risk.
Are you swimming? Are you playing golf? Are you at work? Are you in Seattle?
After Florida, Texas has the most deaths from lightning, followed by Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Washington state residents are the least likely to die from a lightning strike.
You have a 1-in-13,500 chance of being struck during your lifetime, and a 1-in1,083,000 chance of being hit in a single year.
Are you a gambler?
blade, a loopy feeling for a couple of hours and more respect for lightning. “When lightning strikes nearby,” he said, “wow, do I get scared.”