Interesting article about Lightning

July is the month when the most people die from lightning strikes.

82% of those killed are male!

'Camping' is the closest thing in the article to hiking, so I'm not sure if they are lumped together or if hiking is just so far down the line as to be negligible.

Full article

Tom Rankin said:

July is the month when the most people die from lightning strikes.

82% of those killed are male!

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More males than females must fish.

skiguy said:

More males than females must fish.

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Perhaps. Or maybe they're smart enough to come in out of the rain...

I would have thought Golf would have rated higher for more strikes. Think about it. Your out there carrying a bag full of metal rods, with a couple of pieces of metal change in your pocket for ball markers, and then metal spikes on your feet.

Typically shorter time to get to shelter from the golf course than from mid-lake, when a storm approaches.

No surprises in the data; the presentation in the article is a little silly.

TCD said:

No surprises in the data; the presentation in the article is a little silly.

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The authors admit that they didn't pay any attention to statistical significance. (The sample sizes are very small...) Many of their conclusions are not supportable from their data. This article would be rejected by any serious scientific journal.

There is also no info on the prior statistics (ie how many people are engaged in each activity) so the article is useless for estimating the risk of the activities.

Doug

What ever...how ever.... when ever..... getting struck by lightning probably really sucks. No one needs any data to come to that conclusion.

skiguy said:

I would have thought Golf would have rated higher for more strikes. Think about it. Your out there carrying a bag full of metal rods, with a couple of pieces of metal change in your pocket for ball markers, and then metal spikes on your feet.

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The saying goes if you are trapped by lightning on a golf course, hold up a 1 iron. The reason: even God cannot hit a 1 iron!

MadRiver said:

The saying goes if you are trapped by lightning on a golf course, hold up a 1 iron. The reason: even God cannot hit a 1 iron!

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Classic. LOL!

So the priest and his friend go golfing.
The friend misses a shot, and says "Dammit, I missed!"
Priest: "You really shouldn't use such language - God may punish you!"
Friend (missing another short putt): "Dammit! I missed!"
Priest: "Seriously, God may strike you for such language!"
Friend (putting the ball in the water): "Dammit!"

A huge lightning bolt comes from the sky, and incinerates...the priest. And from the sky comes a voice:
.
.
.
.
.


"Dammit. I missed!"

During the Yukon River Quest canoe race last week, on the second "night" (the sun does go down, barely, the sky remains a bright dusk for a couple of hours) we experienced nearly continuous lightning. Fortunately it was generally isolated over one mountain ridge to our west. Lack of a jet stream or other air mass movement kept it in place churning away for hours with little movement.

We saw a new ignition with torching of what seemed to be a single spruce, then rapidly igniting several others half way up a mountain just off the river near us. We later learned that there were as many as 62 simultaneous reported fires in the Yukon.

Lightning is certainly a spectacular way to die (it's pretty much the plane crash of nature deaths), I suspect that wind and water from a thunderstorm are far more dangerous.

I remember a hike up on the Divide when we quit early because of lightning, meanwhile back in Boulder some kid was killed playing soccer.

RoySwkr said:

I remember a hike up on the Divide when we quit early because of lightning, meanwhile back in Boulder some kid was killed playing soccer.

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In my experience, soccer players will keep going through almost anything. While their dedication might be admirable, unfortunately they end up getting hit by lightning (and destroying a lot of grass fields by playing on them when they are soggy. I'm sure anyone with P&R experience can give a better opinion on that).

Many of the comments from the hoi polloi are a hoot!

The incidence of farming deaths due to lightning is interesting. I speculate that getting the hay (or whatever else) in before it gets wet may seem worth the risk to the farmer.

skiguy said:

I would have thought Golf would have rated higher for more strikes. Think about it. Your out there carrying a bag full of metal rods, with a couple of pieces of metal change in your pocket for ball markers, and then metal spikes on your feet.

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Most golf courses shag you off the course as soon as thunder is heard nowadays. The article mentions that golf course deathes due to lightning have decreased significantly. I wonder how many head into the 19th hole, get a snootful early, and then die on the highway driving home.

When I was a kid, I was sitting outside our house in my grandpa's car, waiting for grandma to come out. My mom was inside the house playing the piano. We saw, heard, and felt the lightning strike and new it was serious when the music stopped. I followed my grandfather inside to find my mom kneeled over beside the piano. She was searching for a new book of music in the cabinet, unaware that lightning had struck the house and blasted out the wiring in the old section of the home. Lightning is not to be fooled with. There isn't just one bolt, but usually many that appear as one.

Paradox said:

Most golf courses shag you off the course as soon as thunder is heard nowadays. The article mentions that golf course deathes due to lightning have decreased significantly.

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More or less the same thing happens in NY high school athletics. Everyone has to go inside and remain there until no lightning has been observed for 30 minutes.

I think those stats are probably meaningless as they don't account for the popularity of the various activities. A "deaths per hour of exposure" stat would be more interesting.

The categories given are only 53% of the total deaths, there were apparently 113 other deaths in categories with 8 or fewer

"Running" appears in one of the pie charts at a lesser frequency than golf or maybe 5 instances

I was on the summit of Mt Princeton when snow flurries moved in, some people who had walked up the full 5000 vertical feet from the gate turned around maybe 200 vertical feet from the summit. But there was a monument just above to someone that didn't, a noted triathlete who couldn't outrun a lightning bolt.