About 40 million lightning strikes strike the ground in the United States each year.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is less than a one in a million chance of being struck by lightning directly or indirectly. While rare (and even though 90% of lightning strikes are not fatal), being struck by lightning can still result in serious injury and even lifelong debilitation. And if you think you’re protected from lightning inside your home, think again: one third of all lightning injuries occur indoors.
For example, is it safe to shower during a storm? Can you use a landline phone when there is thunder outside? And what happens to the dishes left in the sink? Should they wait until the storm has passed?
We’ve all heard advice about these topics at one time or another, but what is reality and what is fiction? Emergency physician Christopher Bazzoli, MD, FAWM, DiMM, answers some of these surprising questions so we can all be a little safer in our homes.
Can you safely shower during a storm?
The idea that you’re protected from lightning because you’re home and indoors may make you feel safe enough to take a shower during a storm… but you’d be surprisingly wrong.
When there is a thunderstorm, lightning can strike a home and travel through its pipes to strike you, making showering during a storm difficult. an unsafe practice. This is true even if you have plastic pipes because water is an excellent conductor of electricity.
“Current can easily travel along these pipes and, when it seeks an outlet at the end of the line, it can jump out and hit a person from the shower or faucet,” explains Dr. Bazzoli.
This also applies if you are bathing, washing dishes, or washing your hands, all unsafe activities during a storm.
“The good news is that conduction range at home is usually much less severe than outside, because electricity needs to travel farther and has more opportunities to split and dissipate in other directions when inside,” he adds.
What happens if lightning strikes your house?
When lightning strikes your home, it will follow the path of least resistance. That means it can travel along pipes and power lines in an effort to reach its destination. That makes interacting with objects that are plugged into the wall (like landlines) and pipes dangerous behavior during a storm.
“When it thunders, stay inside and spend time reading a book or doing an activity that doesn’t connect you to electrical and plumbing systems,” advises Dr. Bazzoli.
When is it safe to shower during a storm?
To protect yourself from a lightning strike, refrain from showering for at least 30 minutes after the last thunder you hear.
“The most dangerous times for lightning strikes are immediately before and immediately after the storm,” says Dr. Bazzoli. “Lightning can commonly extend up to 10 miles from a storm cloud. So if you can hear the thunder, you are still within that striking distance.”
What if you are camping?
If you are in the woods or countryside and staying in a tent or primitive shelter, you will want to find a more protective solution by seeking shelter inside a building or vehicle. A tent offers no protection from lightning and distributes current to the ground unevenly, allowing electricity to jump across the space.
You should also make sure you are not standing under any tall objects, like trees for example, because this is a common way to get hit. If you have an RV, which typically has its own electrical and plumbing systems, you should make sure you follow the same rules you would if you were inside a house: don’t shower during a storm and stay away from electrical wiring systems.
What if you live in an apartment building or complex? Is it safe from lightning?
“If I live in an apartment complex or a high-rise building, shouldn’t I feel safe?”
Perhaps you too are wrong in thinking or stating the same.
Commercial buildings tend to be taller, but often have some lightning mitigation system, such as lightning rods. However, the same rule applies to larger buildings and apartment complexes as it does to a home: If you get struck by lightning, it will find its way to a grounding point, and anything in that path can be at risk.
“In a larger building or apartment complex, there are more pathways for the current to dissipate and find its way to areas of lower charge,” clarifies Dr. Bazzoli. “There’s less danger in a big, tall building, but that doesn’t mean there’s no risk.”
How does a lightning strike affect you?
“By taking the path of least resistance, openings and orifices such as the eyes, ears, and mouth are easier entrances for rays than through a thick bone like the skull,” notes Dr. Bazzoli.
That makes eye, ear, and mouth injuries more common when struck by lightning. And you can be struck by lightning directly or indirectly if you come into contact with a surface or object that has been struck. This is why you never want to lie down in a storm because it increases the amount of surface area you are in contact with, and then increases the likelihood of current traveling through you.
If you are struck by lightning, you can suffer a number of injuries including:
- Cardiac arrest (your heart stops beating)
- Respiratory arrest (inability to breathe)
- Nerve damage that causes long-term effects such as seizure disordersmemory difficulties, sleep disturbances, personality changes and paresthesia (tingling in the hands and feet)
- Tissue burns
- Vision loss, cataracts, retinal detachments, and internal eye bleeding
- Hearing loss and burst eardrums
Lightning also heats the air they pass through to more than 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,760 degrees Celsius), five times hotter than the surface of the sun, so it’s no surprise that these injuries are often serious.
“Sometimes lightning can have so much current that, if it’s wet, it can vaporize the fluid on your skin and overheat it, which can cause burns,” says Dr. Bazzoli.
What to do if you or someone else has been struck by lightning
If you or someone has been struck by lightning, the most important thing you can do is get to safety, then call 911 or the local emergency services hotline.
Despite what is commonly claimed, lightning can strike the same place more than once, and because lightning is capable of short-circuiting the internal electrical systems that allow the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe , it is critical that you seek help immediately and get those systems up and running as soon as possible.
“Once you call 911, if it is safe to do so and you are trained, initiating cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and using a defibrillator can save lives,” the doctor says. Bazzoli. “Lightning deaths often occur because they disrupt our respiratory drive and/or cardiac pacemaker, so you’ll want to do chest compressions and provide rescue breathing to a person who’s been struck, while those systems are short-circuited.”
At the end of the day, if it’s storming outside and/or you hear thunder, you can probably afford to postpone your shower until the weather clears up.
Fuente: an article published on the portal health.clevelandclinic.org
For twelve yearsGamma Knife Center Ecuador (GKCE) offers its vision and experience along with the innovation of a world-renowned neurosurgical tool, considered a benchmark in medical literature for its pattern of excellence and proven results.
The stereotactic radiosurgery con Gamma Knife Icon® It is not an experimental therapeutic modality. It is a very effective method to treat pathologies and brain tumors. Its application is supported by five decades of clinical research published in prestigious scientific journals and has more than one million successful cases.
To serve you better we are accredited by the Comprehensive Public Health Network (IESS, ISSFA, ISSPOL, MSP) and the main private insurers in the country.
Book your appointment today and get a second opinion. We are GKCE: cutting-edge technology at the service of an optimal quality of life. Consult us!
I like this:
Charging…