Rider struck by lightning in Colorado

[dantama]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...56/detail.html

I'm still in Europe, but looked at the local news just to see what is happening. I've seen a rider almost struck by lightning, so close I thought it got them, and I've had a strike so close I zapped through the metal rod of an umbrella, but this one would have been bad news.

Do any of you take precautions for lightning?

I'll confess that after the near miss(I was getting something out of my hardbag in a parking lot) I was afraid of it for a while, but now I ride through storms. What about you?

[AlabamaNomadRider]

That is really something Dan. Hard to imagine getting struck by lightning. Guess he is fortunate to be alive.

I have ridden in downpours but not while it was lightning. If I see lightning I will seek some type of shelter if possible.

[ringadingh]

I try to get inside if its bad lightning close by. Its nothing to fool with.
Last summer my son was playing in a school yard and lightning struck the flag pole, they where about 25 yards away when it hit, they were fine luckily but he said the asphalt was smoking around them for a minute.

[Cajunrider]

I witnessed a close friend (class mate) get struck by lightning in 1971 while crabbing on a dam in Southern Terrebonne Parish. It was a direct hit in the middle of his shoulder blades. He was killed instantly and burnt nearly beyond recognition. 2 weeks later, another from the same class flipped his car near where I now live and was partially ejected while the car was rolling. He too was killed instantly. We were at the scene of the accident the following morning and the funeral home workers were there with a flat shovel and bag picking up sections of his skull. Not a good year for our class. Anyway, back to the lightning, I refuse to let my operations crew work outside during a thunderstorm. Don't care if the plant is falling down around my ears, they won't go outside. Several years ago when I was an outside operator, lightning hit a vent stack about 40 feet from where I was standing and ignited it. That was too close. Lightning scares me more than anything else that I can think of. On a bike, you aren't grounded but that won't stop lightning from striking you. It is such a powerful force and the voltage is so high it could easily go to ground by jumping from the metal rim to the road. Nothing to fool with IMHO.

[chainsaw]

I totally agree with all of you. I too duck for cover.

[audiogooroo]

We have a lot of lightning strikes here in Colorado Springs. When I was in College, I used to work for a stucco company running their lath crews. This basically involved wrapping the exterior walls in metal stucco netting or metal lath. One summer afternoon were trying to finish up a large home next to the foothills as a thunderstorm was brewing, but still looked to be an hour or more away. Sky overhead was blue and cloudless. All of the sudden, an ear-shattering boom shook the ground as a lightning bolt struck the roof of the house we were working on. A bizarre blue flame with sparks began firing off of the metal netting we had just installed and lasted for several seconds. One of my guys screamed like a little girl. We wrapped up and went home, but it really impacted me as to how far away from the actual storm a lightning strike can occur.

[dougster]

Sure reminds me how weak, frail, and easily destroyed we humans are!

[MarkG]

Lightning, hail, and tornadoes are the show stoppers. The last trip was a three hour delay in Durango due to lightning. Missed two tornadoes, golf ball and baseball size hail in northern Colorado and South Dakota. That kind of heavy weather is not worth the risk, I will find someplace to wait it out.

[billyboy]

Originally Posted by Dan Lund

but now I ride through storms. What about you?

No way would I ride in an electrical storm! The odd thing about lightning is that it doesn't really come out of the sky and "strike" you. If you watch a high-speed video of a strike, lightning forms BETWEEN you and the sky. You'll see part of the lightning bolt reaching up FROM an object on the ground to meet the bolt from the sky to make the connection.

If you've ever been very close to a strike, just before it happens you feel the charge in your body. That means you're a potential target as are all the other objects around you. That feeling means that you're already trying to make the connection with the lightning and that a lightning bolt could come shooting out of your head toward the sky.

[sly]

I was having supper last night with a collegue of mine (we're EMS managers) that is a good friend of one of the other riders from that group, all firefighters from Broward county Fla., the guy past away from his injuries after his transfer. Although the news report a helmet "splinter", the thing broke in half and the victim well lets say was not a pretty site.
About two years ago a rider was struck and killed in Gatineau, Quebec while riding during a storm on a highway. Let's just say it's like being on a golf course, why chance it.... IMHO

RIP rider

[dantama]

After my near miss(hit something nearby, but still zapped my hand where I was touching the metal rod of an umbrella) I was supper cautious. I missed a VROC rally 15 miles away just because the weather report showed a few lightning strikes on their live map. Most everyone at the rally kept riding from reading their posts, but the near miss was still too fresh in my mind, and I didn't want to chance it.

I wouldn't purposely ride into a lightning storm now, so I'm not that cavalier, but I'd probably ride to that VROC rally now, as did most of the people who were there.

If you could see thunder heads building 30 miles in the distance, and you were on a trip, at what point would you get off the road and wait however many hours it took for it to pass completely?

[waterman]

Dan,

I rode into a storm (well, the storm backed up on me) that contained quite a bit of lightning and it was hitting close. There was no where to pull off or turn around. I was pulling seat cushion out for a week. I've had lightning hit 80 feet from me. It was a hard enough strike that me and my dad were on our butts looking at one another. The general look of "Let's get the HE!! out of here".

[glwilson]

Don't remember the year; but it was in Colorado that several young kids were killed by lightning while playing a sport on a high-school field.

The problem was... there weren't any storms in the sky around there.

It was later determined that the lightning was generated from another storm nearly 30+ miles away and around several other mountains. This was documented by Doppler radar.

So... while a freak situation... it remains possible to be struck by lightning generated from many miles away.

In those situations... if it happens, well then... it was just simply your time to go. ;)

[Jared]

Wow. This is incredible. Never really thought much about it.

[unwind2]

Several years back my hubbie (Ken) was doing some plumbing under a house out in the country. Skies clear pretty day...then a bolt of lightening far off in the distance. ....traveled thru the ground and Ken got a good jolt as he was touching a metal pipe.
Rocked him pretty good....there was nobody home he said he could just see folks coming home from work that afternoon and finding him laying there dead under their house still holding the pipe.