"There was a tremendous explosion, like that of a bomb. We both were fired by the air, before landing again in the cornice. I had no idea what had happened. I remember that I felt a tingling, a feeling of nervousness above down".
Dan Bailey and his friend were climbing on a mountain named The Cobbler, in the highlands of Scotland, several years ago, when they rested in a cornice, both were reached by lightning.The strangest thing was that there was no warning: neither storm, nor thunder.Bailey, an experienced mountaineer, author of guides and editor of an outdoor activities website, later described it as "a fallen ray of heaven."
The two men quickly left the top of the mountain and went down to a lower land.But there was a disturbing smell of roasted meat and melted plastic."We both realized that we had melted holes in our Gore-Tex jackets, and through the other layers of clothing we were wearing," Bailey explains.
Upon undressing to the waist, he realized that there was a Diana pattern recorded on the skin of his back, below the shoulder blade."There were concentric rings of different colors in my skin, with a small hole in the center where the current had entered. And, in my right foot, there was a hole that crossed the sock and went out the boot where the current had come out"
(Related: the effects of rays on the human body)
Both climbers spent a night at the hospital under observation, but they left relatively unharmed.Neither of them suffered long -term health problems, although today, Bailey continues to have a scar on the back, the size of a fifty cents coin.
He was very fortunate: leaving aside the possibility of getting rid of the mountain due to a fall, lightning by themselves are usually mortal.It is estimated that every year on 240,000 people fall throughout the planet, and estimates of the resulting deaths vary greatly.One study has suggested 6000 deaths a year, another up to 24,000.
