Three brothers from a town near London experienced this week the lightning strike when they were taking a bike ride. The impact caused them a lot of pain, stun and some injuries, but fortunately they are doing well.
It will be a great story to tell, of course, especially since they have graphic documents that testify to it. And it is that, just at the moment in which the lightning hit them, they were performing a selfie.
As a result, the camera captured the intense flash that hovered over them, without them having time to react. But they did not see it immediately afterwards, because at that moment they were on the ground, dizzy, achy and with loud ringing in the ears. They would see him later, at the hospital, where they received great treatment. So much so that the three brothers were quick to thank him, both on social media and in interviews with the media.
The fall of lightning immortalized in a ‘selfie’
Isobel, Rachel and Andrew Jobson they left home by bicycle to visit their aunt. They did not care about the heavy rain that was already beginning to fall on them.
However, halfway through they decided to stop, as Rachel needed to go to the bathroom. They stopped near a cafeteria so that she could go to the toilet, and while the other two they decided to take shelter under a tree. When Rachel came out she saw her two brothers there and they all thought it would be nice to take some photos. The idea, as they told in an interview for the BBC, was to do two selfies. One smiling, under the tree, and another with sad faces from the rain. But they did not go beyond the first, as the fall of lightning quickly erased the smile from their faces.
The next thing they remember is being in pain on the ground, with a loud ringing in their ears. The customers of the cafeteria rushed to their aid and took them to the nearby St. George Hospital. There they were treated for the burns and released in just a few hours. The worst part was taken by the two sisters, as Andrew was only a little dizzy, but in general neither was serious. They were very lucky, considering how dangerous a lightning strike can be.
Arborescent shapes on the arms
The two sisters, but especially Isobel, had a curious pattern similar to plant leaves on the arm.
This is something known as Lichtenberg figures. It is named after its discoverer, a physicist who in 1777 found that when dust from the air settled on electrically charged plates, fern-like figures were drawn. Over time it was found that these patterns appear whenever a high voltage electrical current passes through a surface. And of course the rays are high voltage electrical currents. And our skin a surface.
Also, the discharge may cause small breaks in the blood capillaries, generating those reddish ramifications; that usually go away on their own in a few days. The result, known medically as arborescent erythema, is not common to everyone who suffers from a lightning strike, but it does have been detected numerous cases, some of them especially intense.
Why did they suffer this accident?
In reality, the three brothers made a terrible mistake, which caused the lightning strike: to take cover under a tree.
When a electric shock From the clouds to the ground, the lightning strikes the most easy, that opposes them less resistance. This makes trees great targets. On the one hand, because They are tall. On the other, because the humidity inside conducts electricity very well.
It is for this reason that we should never shelter from a thunderstorm under one of them. For these brothers, the safest thing would have been to stay in the cafeteria where Rachel went to the bathroom.
In fact, the general recommendations are try searching closed sites and, if this is not possible, keep away from trees, hills or any other high-rise structure and, if possible, curl up, with our hands over our ears and with minimal contact with the ground.
Thus perhaps they would have prevented the lightning strike. It is true that in her case the fact that Isobel had on her arm a titanium plate from a bicycle accident suffered the previous year. Perhaps that is precisely the reason why she had the most intense marks. And the reason why the electric shock fell on them. It wasn’t just the tree.
Be that as it may, you can be very grateful to be able to tell it. Many of the victims of a lightning strike were unable to do so.