Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #546

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Close Call With Lightning Strike: 'I Thought I Was A Goner'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsLlWPts8oM
ed," she said.
No one was hurt, and the lightning bolt appeared to have just missed the neighbor's house. AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor Jesse Ferrell said it's hard to say exact- ly why the light- ning struck where it did in the neigh- bor's yard.
"It looks like it traveled along a straight line from left to right, maybe jumped from the tree to an irrigation or electrical line," Ferrell explained. "Lightning is always trying to find the most effi- cient way into the ground."
The terrifying moment was cap- tured on the Murphys' Ring security camera, and Denice Murphy couldn't help but laugh when she saw her husband's reac- tion.
"That's when we were like, 'Oh, my
goodness, this is horrible and funny at the same time.' But horrible because when he walked from over there, I would have been run- ning," she said. This close call serves as a reminder that it doesn't have to be raining for lightning to strike. In fact, lightning can strike at least 15 miles away from a thunder- storm without any warning and can even be a "bolt from the blue," as nature demon- strated in Lutz, Fla., in 2020.
A radar
image shared by the Lightning Safety Council on Twitter showed a small storm just a few miles away from Sebring had been producing lightning within a 10-mile radius of the storm.
"Any time you can hear thunder, stay indoors," the Lightning Safety Council wrote on Twitter. "Most lightning injuries
and fatalities occur when the storm is approaching or when it is leaving ... There is no safe place out- doors when light- ning is in the area."
According to NOAA's 10-year average of annual lightning fatalities, 25 people are killed by lightning each year in the United States. Delayed actions, like waiting too longtogettoa safe place when storms are approaching, account for many of the lightning casualties and injuries in the United States.
Even though the Ring security camera gave the Murphys a good laugh, they under- stand how serious the situation could have been.
"You can't mess with Mother Nature," Rod Murphy said. "Lightning is noth- ing to play with."
By Allison
Finch, Accuweath er.com
Ahead of some rain, Rod Murphy headed outside his home
in Sebring, Fla., just south of Orlando, to turn off his sprinkler system, but little did he know he was about to get the most shocking wake-up call of his life.
As Murphy was heading back
inside on Saturday, seem- ingly out of nowhere, lightning struck a small tree in his neigh- bor's yard across the street, send- ing chunks of red- hot earth 20 feet into the air -- enough to give him a significant jolt.
"It wasn't raining. It was cloudy, but that was it, and then boom," Rod Murphy said in an interview with
WSVN. "Only two things happen when you get hit by lightning: You die or you get knocked out. You don't know what's going to happen, and I thought I was a goner."
His wife, Denice Murphy, was still in bed when the lightning struck.
"I was laying in bed. I heard it, a kaboom! It literally sounded like a bomb had explod-
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine