Hit By Lightning......almost

James Snover

The Ill-Advised Physics Amplification Co
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Ya we have to have personal dosimeters in my job.
Not all the time but job specific.

Called a “NEW” (nuclear energy worker)

They count a lifetime dose for us.

Focus on 1/4ly limits. And lifetime limit of course.


Sent from my POFS iPhone in a rage cause this is the third try.
Sort of the same for me, in the xray repair biz. Wear one every day, though. But I never have any dose above background because once you know how the beam is generated, if you're dumb enough to be there when it is being triggered, well, you probably should have been an accountant, instead.
 

Need 04 Wine

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@earico

Glad to hear you both made it out ok.
And really glad that so far the truck was an easy fix.

For what it’s worth you may want to report the event to your insurance.

I had a cousins truck that got struck by lightening. And the damage eventually caused a full write off to happen as more systems kept failing. Took about a month from event.


Sent from my POFS iPhone in a rage cause this is the third try.
 

mustangvsix

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I was outside once under a patio roof when lighting struck in our yard probably 20-30 feet away. It was raining out and the temp change was distinct as was the shattering of every rain drop. Very distinct memory for me.
 

Double"O"

N2S come get some
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One last fun fact about lightning: at the top of every lightning bolt that is generated, there is a shower of xrays, gamma rays and positrons. We only discovered that five or six years ago, if I remember correctly. It's enough radiation that it is reflected in the rates of cancer of flight crews and frequent fliers as compared to the rest of the population.

Are you talking about blue jets and red sprites?
 

earico

It's 4:20 somewhere...
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Wow that's crazy. Two months ago I was standing on my deck admiring a T-storm when it hit my roof 20' behind me. The sky went pure white. I jumped 5 feet in the air and ran inside. I'd post the video but no one wants to see a middle aged man jump like a retard flailing his arms.
It took out my TV, my internet, & burnt a splitter. 3 seconds later it hit my pole and burnt cable wires and a bunch of cable stuff. I got that on video too, it was cool how it lit up the wire bright blue and stayed lit for a second.
Dayum! Of course we'd love to see this video! No one should make fun of you for something like that. Every person here would jump and act the fool. These keyboard warriors aren't as tough as they think they are!

Man, that is crazy!!! Look at that coil.
Thank God you made it safely. I bet you never forget that trip! lol
Never ever bro. Shit was f'n surreal.

I'm surprised that it only killed one coil. Did you check any of the others?

Sent from my [mind] using the svtperformance.com mobile app
I did pull the coil on the next cylinder on the driver's side and it was fine visually. I'll be pulling them all soon and will check them. I went ahead and order a full set of plugs when I order the replacement COP.

That’s a crazy story man! Can’t believe it just melted one cop and nothing else.
Only because I’m curious, did you go temporarily “blind” from the bright bolt crashing in front of you? Assuming it was dark out.
That's what was crazy. It wasn't dark at all. Visibility was probably a mile. It looked like a normal daytime rain but I knew better. Temps don't just drop 40 degrees everyday. LOL. The further we drove in and the further the temp dropped the more on alert I was. Then wham!

EMP effects are crazy-random, like that. The business you see in the movies where there is a big EMP and suddenly all electronics die is not how it works in real life. An EMP, as soon as it finds a path to ground, "collapses" into that path to ground and is pulled from the immediate surrounding area. As soon as an ionization trail is formed, it no longer even needs the original object around which it formed, the ionized gas is now the path to ground and that is where all the energy goes. This makes EMP very unreliable as area electronics-denial weapons. Yes, some will get fried, but also a lot won't; you get a lot better bang for the buck just making a regular bomb.

There is one qualification, however: the sun. When the sun spits out a big EMP, such as the Carrington Event in the late 1800's, forget everything I just said, because, well, we're talking about the sun, the literal hammer of God. The EMP is so large there's plenty to go around, and just hold on to your butts and pray, because yes, everything electronic is going to get fried. Shielding? First thing to go.

Ironically, the EMP from the sun never actually touches Earth. What it does is compress Earth's own magnetic field, and that compression, and consequent re-expansion, of Earth's own magnetic field is what does the damage.
Science is amazing. Good friend of mine who is a nuclear physicist explained it just like you did. I keep replaying it in my head and I'm still in awe. Mother nature can be a bad bitch!

That cracking/log snapping sound is how you know you’re in the shit zone of a lightning strike.

Heard/felt it twice in person, and it’s an unsettling sound.

I’ve also given up entirely trying to figure out how electricity works and what path it’s going fo decide to take in bulk.

Lightning is an enemy in my line of work, and something that powerful and unpredictable can kiss my ass.
I've been near strikes before but not this damn close. I could have thrown a rock and hit the spot where this strike happened. Hearing that cracking thru the air was something I will never forget. Remember I was inside my truck with the windows up, traveling 50mph and it was raining sideways. Could still hear that shit!

Crazy...i would of bought lotto ticket right after changing my underwear

Sent from my LG-H830 using the svtperformance.com mobile app
LOLOLOLOL! My brother in-law said the same exact thing when we told him. He said we should have bought one at the Allsups the moment we got there. LOL.

@earico

Glad to hear you both made it out ok.
And really glad that so far the truck was an easy fix.

For what it’s worth you may want to report the event to your insurance.

I had a cousins truck that got struck by lightening. And the damage eventually caused a full write off to happen as more systems kept failing. Took about a month from event.


Sent from my POFS iPhone in a rage cause this is the third try.
Yeah I'm gonna keep a close eye on it and go from there. Like James said the coil should have drawn the EMP in but it is possible it could have damaged other components. At least this wasn't a direct strike.
 

Coiled03

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Been through a similar experience as OP, but not in a car.

Would not do again by choice.
 

IronSnake

Beers for the boys
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You should send this into Ford and say "Built Ford Tough" and let them use it in an ad. You could be instafamous.

Pretty Badass story
 

AustinSN

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This is so crazy. I keep coming back in here to look at that coil and re-read what Snover said.
 

ZYBORG

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Insane, mein.

Too close for comfort on that one; could have became a statistic!
 

CompOrange04GT

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So the wife and I just went to NM to visit her parents last Friday. Just outside of Plains, TX we came up on a storm. I took one look at it and said to the wife, "It's gonna get rough." She thought I was being over cautious. Well before we entered that storm it was 101 degrees outside according to the display in the truck. At the center of it the temp had dropped to 63 degrees and it was raining sheets of rain sideways. Visibility was surprisingly good though. and you could see about a mile fairly easily. I told the wife to keep her eyes open because it felt like a tornado type of situation and looked similar to those storms you see on TV where those fools chase tornadoes. Man it wasn't a minute later and shit went full retard. @James Snover remember that conversation we had about ionizing air in the spark plug gap under boost vs lightning? Well I got to see that shit in person!

We were travelling at about 50 mph down this 2 lane road. Out of nowhere this bolt of lightning that was probably 8"-12" wide came down and veered at an angle. It started at our right, crossed the road in front of us and hit the wooden poled, low power lines on the other side of the road. We were about 25-30 yards from this strike when it hit. You could hear it cracking thru the air. Sounded like you were splitting a piece of wood in a log splitter. About 20' or so above the lines the bolt split into 2 bolts with each hitting the same line. Upon impact you could see these 2 large grapefruit size bright blue fireballs burning around the lines!!! 1/2 a second after it hit we were then side by side where it hit. My wife was driving and as we went by the hair on her left arm stood straight up. It sounded like fajitas sizzling mixed with the sounds of buzzing electrical noises. 3 seconds later I'm looking out the back window and I can see the fireballs finally get smaller and go out. There was zero sound of thunder this close to the strike. Then the wife says the truck is acting funny and the CEL was on. I had noticed it was bumpy but I thought she had gotten too close to the shoulder and it was just the warning grooves in the pavement. Nope the truck was bucking pretty hard. I had her pull over and I popped the hood. I knew lightning could give off an EMP but wasn't too sure the range and how strong. I checked to see if anything was smoking under the hood. I was especially concerned with the battery but everything looked fine so I hopped in and limped it to Plains.

I figured it must have hit a coil pack because it felt like it was running on 5 cylinders. Everything else was working fine. So we had it towed 100 miles to our final destination. I had the CEL code pulled at Vatozone and it said misfire #4 cylinder. Looked up what was #4 online and sure enough it was the one closest to the strike, driver's side front. Pulled that coil and whoa. Look how it hit the winding of the coil but didn't the connector. The one on the left in the pic is the new replacement. That outside casing is very hard plastic insulation and it made it look like rubber. I assume it hit the coil, went into the plug, thru the head and block then down chassis ground. Makes perfect sense the EMP was drawn to the tight windings in the coil.

Truck is fine now. New coil and all is good but it could have been a lot worse! It's still surreal to us that we saw this happen. We went back thru there yesterday on the way back home. Well they had 2 boom trucks and a pickup out there repairing a transformer about 3/4-1 mile from where it happened. LOL. I should have stopped and ask them how much damage it caused and that we saw it happen!
View attachment 1594174
View attachment 1594175 View attachment 1594176

Hi you were an hour from me. Bye
 

CobraBob

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That was indeed quite an experience, and one that neither of you will ever forget. Hang on to that zapped coil. Maybe frame it! LOL.

Thanks, James, for your comments. As always, interesting and informative.
 

IamRacerX

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Wow.... glad you guys came out ok. That is some story.
Don’t mess with Mother Nature!
 

Murder Snake

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have two friends here that both had their cars hit by lightning. one was a suburban, hit the antenna and blew it off the car and fried everything electronic in the car. totaled. other was a crown vic interceptor. hit the back glass or trunk..not sure which, marks on the trunk, blew the ford emblem off the trunk, shattered the back glass(held in place by the tint) and traveled to several of the wheels and tires, leaving marks on the steelies and created a slow leak in one tire. replaced the cpu and kept on truckin. police interceptors tough??? you bet. not so much the suburban.
 

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