Monday, July 28, 2008
How to attract lightning
Five people in Hicksville, New York were injured by lightning strike over the weekend. I hate to sound unsympathetic, but...
Five people were struck by lightning on Long Island. The group was playing soccer in Hicksville when they were caught off guard by powerful thunderstorms. The victims, all in their 20s, sought shelter under a tree. (emphasis added)
Not one of the five of them knew that it is, shall we say, a bad idea to "seek shelter" from lightning under a tree? Am I the only person who learned that when I was a little kid? I thought it was an integral part of, er, the learned wisdom of, er, all humanity. What are the odds that not one out of five people, even five Long Islanders, knows this?
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jul 28, 01:17:00 PM:
Maybe they were hoping for a great baseball bat...
"It all started last year during a terrible thunderstorm, when I locked myself out of the house. Shelving myself with a large piece of sheet metal, I ran for cover under the tallest tree I could find."
-Homer Simpson from "Homer at the Bat"
By , at
Mon Jul 28, 01:21:00 PM:
Well, people tend to forget things like this in the heat of the moment. And truthfully people are pretty dumb.
However, I'm thinking it likely the victims did *not* learn this in school. Public schools used to transmit useful information like lightning safety along with basic arithmetic and reading skills. I think now this has largely been abandoned to make way for education on racism and homophobia.
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Mon Jul 28, 02:16:00 PM:
Nature's penalty for stupidity/carelessness is sometimes a harsh one.
By John Foster, at
Mon Jul 28, 03:02:00 PM:
What do you mean "even five Long Islanders"?
From the article in Newsday, my guess is that the five were not originally from around these parts, i.e. young men playing soccer on a Sunday morning in a large park in Hicksville, who work in construction, and decline to give their names.
By , at
Mon Jul 28, 08:09:00 PM:
Same exact thing happened in Dorchester, MA about three weeks ago-right down to the soccer game and what I am assuming is the nationality of the strikees
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 08:12:00 AM:
when i was living in colorado a herd of about 50 elk were electrocuted by a lighting strike, and they weren't under any trees. not sure why you think being out in the open is safe.
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 09:23:00 AM:
From today's article in Newsday, it appears that the soccer club members were from El Salvador.
By , at
Thu Jul 31, 12:16:00 PM:
My guess would be that they were seeking shelter from rain, not lightning.
And, well, it was Long Island. What can you do?
