Why Lightning Strikes Select Their Victims
When lightning bolts down from the sky, it often strikes a single person amidst a crowd. What sets this "chosen one" apart? How does their body respond to the extraordinary electrical surge? And why does lightning leave some with impaired memories while granting others with curious, newfound abilities? Recent studies have begun to unravel some—but not all—of these stormy mysteries.
Lightning's Deadly Nature
Lightning is one of nature's most prevalent phenomena, with an estimated 250,000 people struck each year. While many succumb to its power, a surprising number manage to survive the ordeal.
According to the National Weather Service, lightning injuries can inflict severe physical and psychological consequences. Physically, lightning can cause skin burns known as Lichtenberg figures—temporary patterns on the skin caused by damaged blood vessels leaking into surrounding tissue.
Moreover, lightning strikes can lead to cardiac and respiratory arrest as it directly affects the cardiovascular and nervous systems. Brain damage, memory loss, and seizures can also occur. However, lightning does not claim all its victims. The electrical bolt travels through the body in a split second, and about 90% of those struck survive.
Psychological Scars
Psychologically, lightning strike survivors may experience post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and lasting emotional issues. Studies indicate that neuromuscular problems can persist, affecting their quality of life. Lightning can also rupture eardrums from the pressure wave, paralyze the respiratory system, or cause secondary burns from ignited hair or clothing.
Hunting for Targets
The odds of being struck by lightning—about 1 in 600,000—may seem incredibly low. Yet, the risk is increasing each year, with a growing number of people being struck by lightning. While the frequency of lightning strikes has not increased—hovering around 8 million per day—insurance claims in the United States for lightning-related injuries have risen from an average of 600 per year to nearly 1,500 today. So, is lightning hunting humans like prey?
The Impact of Lightning
The effects of lightning as it courses through the body are equally perplexing. One might expect the tens of millions of volts and hundreds of thousands of amps to instantly kill a person. But somehow, many victims walk away—nearly 900 annually in the United States, according to the Lightning Strike & Electrical Safety Institute (LS&ESSI).
These survivors are eager to be studied, but few researchers take on the task, believing that lightning behaves like a live wire. However, lightning is far more complex. Sometimes it leaves no visible trace on the body but passes internally through vital organs. Conversely, it may scorch clothing and footwear while grazing the skin. In one case, a victim's sweat evaporated into a cloud of steam around their body. For others, pocket coins melted into solid lumps, gold fillings fused, and necklaces and zippers vaporized. Yet, all these individuals lived.
Nerve Damage and Unusual Abilities
Research suggests that humans survive because the surge of electrical energy, though incredibly powerful, only "sees" the body for a few microseconds. This means it does not always have time to burn or fatally damage. The severity of the impact depends on the impedance of the organs and tissues, averaging around 700 ohms. The higher the ohms, the more severe the consequences.
According to lightning injury researcher and American resuscitation specialist Mary Enn Kuper, our electrical circuitry—the nerves—are the first to "burn." In mild cases, the protective sheaths of these fibers, similar to insulation on electrical wires, are damaged. The victim may not notice any change until after the shock has passed. Sometimes, the impact only reveals itself months later as nerves begin to "short-circuit" and create connections where none should exist. This accounts for some of the bewildering effects seen in survivors.
Indeed, many LS&ESSI members complain of poor motor control, seizures, ringing in the ears, occasional loss of bladder control, and heightened irritability. One lightning strike victim even shaved his head bald, not out of fashion but because he could no longer bear his perpetual "hair-raising" sensation.
Positive effects have been recorded as well. A Czech man named Ian Glovache reported a miraculous restoration of sexual function that he had lost before his lightning strike. According to Kuper, his spinal cord may have been "short-circuited," creating a connection that reinstated the nerve impulses responsible for erections.
A Case of "Swiss Cheese Brain"
When lightning strikes directly to the head, the consequences can be devastating, ranging from blown-out eyes and coma to total paralysis and bizarre behavioral changes. One of Dr. Hedler's patients "regressed" to childhood after being struck by lightning, behaving like a two-year-old. Another suffered from short-term memory loss, frantically making notes about where he placed objects to avoid losing them.
MRI scans of such individuals show that lightning burns away significant portions of their brains. But the damage is often spotty, affecting multiple areas simultaneously. Researchers have coined the term "Swiss cheese brain" to describe these scattered areas of damage that resemble holes in a block of Swiss cheese. Where these "holes" appear is unpredictable, but the resulting oddities depend on their location.
Missouri resident Harold Dean became famous for losing all sense of cold. He goes about in a T-shirt even during winter blizzards. England's Elen Vard, on the other hand, developed a canine-like sense of smell, able to find objects previously handled by others. And Berlin's Hunter Lunge acquired an astonishing mathematical ability, mentally multiplying six-digit numbers with ease. In essence, lightning has the power to transform humans into walking, talking mutants. Even more intriguing, it suggests that our brains harbor latent abilities waiting to be unlocked.
Loss of Memory After Lightning Strike
One lightning strike survivor is Scott Knudsen, a cowboy from Texas. In 2023, Knudsen shared his story with media outlets and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to raise awareness about lightning strikes.
Knudsen recalls the accident that occurred in 2005, on his daughter's first birthday. He was holding his baby while his wife stood nearby as they celebrated in a horse barn when lightning struck. The day had been clear, but a storm was raging about 12 miles away.
His wife sustained injuries to her eyes and ears, and his daughter suffered minor burns. Knudsen, however, bore the brunt of the strike as lightning hit him directly in the head. He was rendered nearly immobile and experienced difficulty moving his facial muscles.
Most notably, brain scans revealed significant damage to his cognition. Knudsen's memory was virtually wiped out, including knowledge of basic skills such as reading and writing. He was 37 years old at the time.
So, his wife retaught him to read and write. Knudsen joked that his spouse had gained an extra child in him. Together, they relearned counting on the keypad of a cell phone and watched children's musicals on television to help him build vocabulary.
He also practiced relearning previous skills—walking, caring for horses, and driving a car. After about three months, progress began to show.
Looking back almost two decades later, Scott Knudsen says that the accident and his subsequent recovery taught him the value of family and life. He also started a project to promote awareness about lightning safety within the rodeo community.
The World Record Holder
The world record for the most lightning strikes survived belongs to Roy Sullivan, a park ranger in Shenandoah National Park. Between 1942 and 1977, Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times. Despite suffering burns from ignited hair and clothing, he survived all but the final encounter. He died by suicide in 1983 at age 72. Suicide ideation is another symptom that some lightning strike survivors experience, as they grapple with chronic pain and rehabilitation issues, according to Steve Mashburn, who broke his back in a 1969 lightning strike.
Forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal cautions that only about 3% to 5% of lightning injuries are direct strikes. Contact injuries—occurring when a person touches another object that was struck, such as a tree or a house—account for an additional 5%.
The most prevalent injuries stem from nearby lightning and ground current, totaling over 80%. In a nearby strike, the victim is standing close to an object that is struck by lightning and receives part of the electrical charge "splashing" over. Ground current works much the same, but the lightning strikes the ground beneath the victim. These incidents can affect multiple individuals at once. "That's how you get entire herds of cattle being electrocuted," Blumenthal explains. The remaining 10% to 12% of lightning injuries result from "streamer" strikes, which occur when positive electrical forces on the ground are drawn upward toward negatively charged storm clouds.