Wondering what the odds are on lighting strikes

My Dad knew a guy who had been hit by lighting multiple times, but if my memory serves me correctly, only once directly. This fellow was an oil field worker and during a storm he took shelter in a building that housed some valves from pipes that came in from different wells. Something was struck out in the field and came in on one of those pipes and blew him out through the wall of the building. He survived with minor injuries and minor burns.


The next time he was driving his pick-up down a wooded dirt road just as a storm was approaching but before the rain had arrived. The lightning struck a tree on the left side of the road bounced through the open windows in his truck and hit a tree on the right side of the road. It left him with fizzled hair and a stalled out truck. Now neither of these were direct hits.

My memory fails me about the direct hit he got. I do not know the details, but do know he had a long recovery period. The soles of his feet we blown partially off and he had bad burns on other parts of his body. I think that I would stay far away from that guy when a storm was on its way.

Now, what made me remember the above was a video clip that friends of mine sent to me via email. It was a video from a security camera that caught a fellow being hit with lightning two times with in a very short period of time. I will try and post this video clip at the end of my blog for you to see. If the guy hadn’t been wet from the rain, the current of lightning may have gone through him. Maybe the wet clothing saved this man’s life.

Now tell me, what are the odds of getting hit with lightning? The email I got said that in an eighty year life span the odds are one in 6250. OK what would be the odds of getting hit twice? Now imagine the odds of getting hit twice within minutes. But what would be the really unbelievable odds of all this happening and getting it on video, too? Wow.

Here is the clip: