Jessica Lynch was shooting video of a rain storm and was suddenly struck by lightning, capturing it all on video. Luckily she wasn’t injured, just a bit shook up.
From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, just a really good zap!
via Flickr Blog
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{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }
Holy crap! This is unreal. Glad she is okay, but that was actually quite scary.
its fake
i hate the people that think that everithing is a FAKE, you are so subnormal that nothing interedting happen to you
fake but funny aniway
this is either fake or remarkable
its remarkable
Man, thats a lucky girl, but shouldn't the cam have stopped working or something?
or at least some distortion on the video? after all its a magnetic tape. Im not saying its fake, its just the second thing i thought after watching the video
It's real. When the lightning strikes, the entire place is iluminated, even trees in the distance, only a real lightning can do that. I saw a lightning stritke at 15 meters of distance. My laptop not even blinking.
its photoshoped, i can tell by the pixels and seeing quite a few shops in my time
I don't think it struck her but close to her. If you look at 3-2 seconds at the end there is sparking and glowing in fron tof her she probably caught and arc and not the full brunt of the hit I would like to know what camera she was using though to take a direct lighting strike and keep going.
No, your prom date was fake. This actually happened.
YOU are fake!
It looks like the strike was at least 25 feet away..
It's
REAL
Should I say this? I had also a technical-lightning problem this week, and more, my horoscope had predicted it to me. And that is because of this breakage, the electric power failed and I saw my new computer screen that was totally black, one second I went as far as thinking it was in fault, but I saw after that the light didn't work either, and if I said troubleshooting I be troubleshooting this is after that event that inspired me
That is quite an experience!
Many people will think its a fake and I don't blame them, after all we've been fooled so many times.
I'm glad the woman is fine though!
pwned
I'd guess that she wasn't -directly- hit by the lightning strike, but rather got some of the charge induced in the railing. From the small burst of flame visible after the strike, it looks like it might have hit a nearby tree. Still, one heck of a close call! :)
MY HOBBY:
Insisting that real life items are photoshopped
Would have to agree that it's fake. Think about this… lightning can generate heat up to 54,000F and travel 60k m/s. If she REALLY got struck by something that hot and moving that fast and traveled the path she claims, there would definitely be entry and/or exit or the camera would have blown out. The strike was actually below her, see the last four seconds of the vid at the bottom of the picture. She was just hit with the discharge of the strike running through the ground and to the metal she was holding.
what the hell was that even english?
This is clearly fake. “From what i understand, it went through my left hand…” There would be no guessing. It BURNS. There has been no person struck by a lightning that was not left with burn damage.
IT DIDN”T HIT HER! WOULDN'T THE CAMERA GET MESSED UP IF LIGHTENING HIT HER OR CLOSE TO HER?! yea i think so. i've seen what lightening striking a pool can do to someone standing 20 feet away. she sounded so stupid in the video
i think he faked posting that comment.
it's a near miss, looks like it hit a clothes line.
it's completely fake considering it's just a small pop when real lightning BOOMS for miles
I don't think it's fake but the lightning didn't strike her directly. I looks like it struck a few hundred feet in the distance. Still scary though.
if you step through each frame you can see that the light source is some distance away from the person recording the video. note the shadows.
It's not fake, but she didn't get a direct hit by the lightning…. you can even see where the lightning hits the ground quite far away, and causes a small fire. All around the lightning there is a strong electric field, which can give you a shock, especially if you are holding on to earthed metal, such as a metal railing.
A full on lightning strike reaches tens of thousands of degrees – you will get entry and exit wounds!!
It's not fake, but I don't think it struck her. It hit the ground in front of her – you can see it glowing for a bit. she screams and the camera shakes because she was scared shitless. If it hit the camera like she says it would be a lot more intense and more likely destroy it.
She's ok because this didn't seem to be a direct strike. In a dense forest area, the lightning path will spread out to several trees. You can even see a second spot at the end of the movie. She is very lucky to be alive.
PS: Anyone hit by lightning should see a doctor as soon as possible. Some people die the day after because your muscles can built op toxins from the electric current which your kidneys cannot handle at once.
Uhhh….you're standing outside in a storm with a piece of electronic equipment in one hand and holding onto a metal handrail with the other. They're reserving a place for you in the Darwin Awards Hall of Fame.
Luckily the strike was able to ground out through her arms without traveling the length of her body. That would kill her for sure. I'm wondering if the brief moment at about 3.5 seconds was the initial transfer of static electricity up to the cloud which enabled the strike to happen. I'm wondering if that had even been caught on video before.
Lightning passing from hand to the other can cause cardiac arrest. I don't doubt there was lightning nearby and she might of gotten a tingle or good shake up, but not struck directly.
Have you seen the movie Powder?
I laughed when I watched it, since we know she's ok its ok to laugh. It was a “shocking” video though.
Thunder booms for miles. Lightening just pops since its an electrical arc.
thats called thunder retard
That's not actually true at all. Lightening leaves a fern-like “burn” pattern on the skin that is uniquely characteristic of a lightening strike. Additionally, if entry and exit wounds are apparently, they reveal nothing about the direction of nature of the strike. If burns are present, they are frequently deep tissue (muscle, subcutaneous fat, etc.) burns that are not apparent on the surface. The primary danger from a lightening strike is probably the disruption of heart electrical activity…burns won't kill you in a matter of seconds, but your heart stopping certainly will.
HOW MUCH DID SHE PAID FOR THAT ELECTRIC BILL!!!!
Lightning doesn't particularly care what you're holding onto, really, unless you've got a grip on a radio tower or something. It isn't attracted to electronics, or umbrellas, or metal railings. Consider that it's an electric arc that's traveled through several kilometers of non-conducting air to reach the ground; what makes up the last few meters isn't particularly important to the process. :)
ITS FAKE
are you F*##ing kidding me?
that orange light is the light bulb cooling off
Just curious – what kind of camera?
OMG is right dude! Wow she had an angel watching over her for sure.
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
Yes! That caught me as well! That first flicker going the other direction! That blew my mind: ghostly, like CAPTURING that “set-up” that is not commonly seen.
That's what amazed me as well. Like she captured that “set up” that's so unlikely to get to see.
From the full description on Flickr page of the author:
“No entry or exit wounds, as i was not directly struck, i got just a really good zap from one of the “finger arcs” that happen when lightning hits. “
http://www.flickr.com/photos/i_love_the_slow_lo...
FAKE…lol…”Lightning heats nearby air to about 10,000 °C (18,000 °F) nearly instantly, which is almost twice the temperature of the Sun’s surface. The heating creates a shock wave that is heard as thunder.[13]” – wiki. its obvious she created a high voltage discharge herself in a bad video and posting it on the internet with a cool title XD u guys r ***** to think lightening would only shock you like a wall outlet.
I think your right, if it hit her, it would have at least knocked her out, and would have screwed up the camera. You can see the tree in front of her glowing with embers from the strike.
Lightning rods. They're metal. They've been around a while. Go golf in a thunderstorm and leave me your ipod in your will.
Photoshop a video?
It looks pretty real, the way lightning flickers is what convinced me. I think we're all in agreement that a full on hit from a lightning bolt would more or less knock her out at least? But all lightning bolts are not perfect; they have offshooting charges. Imagine a fraying rope, now make that rope badass and full of electrcity. An offshoot of charge mostly like found her hand and found the path of least resistance (through the metal rail) And her reaction was most definatly not acting. You can't fake terror in your voice like that. So if it is fake, I'll eat my hat.
lol. zing!
I've been really close to a lightning strike while I was out on my porch. It's seems like a loud crack, or a very loud pop. If you've ever played with high voltage wires and sparked them together, imagine just that times 1000. Scared the ***** outta my roomate and me.
Don't tease me, Bro!
It's actually a good thing that she was holding the handrail. The metal handrail drew nearly all the electricity out of her body. Otherwise, it might have killed her. It's a common myth that metal attracts lightning. Being the highest point in the area is what allows an electrical path to be connected. Golfers get struck because they're standing in a flat field far from trees.
People get struck all the time and survive. Looks pretty real.
Errr, what? I'm not going to disagree with your statement on why golfers can get struck, but to say “it's actually a good thing that she was holding the handrail because it drew nearly all the electricity out of her body.” is a fallicy. Lightning, like all electricity, is seeking the path of least resistence. Dry air is a higher dielectric than a moist human or tree. Similarly a metal structure that is grounded, if it is a good conductor, is even better. Lightning is an electrical potential built up between clouds and the neutrally charged earth. If the path of least resistance is a person standing in an open field or it is a lightning rod attached to the heighest point on a building, the electrical charge is going to find that path has less resistance.
Assuming the main strike was 20 feet from her as the video would suggest (and counting the seconds between the visible flash and hearing the thunder ;-) ), that is certainly close enough to induce a secondary current in the form of eddy currents. The high current lighting bolt would have created a large pulsed magnetic field. The railing may not have been fully grounded (encased in cement pylons or a sidewalk perhaps), but it was indeed close enough to become electrified from induction. This secondary current would have been significantly lower and is what I believe she experienced as the shock.
ever record the deafening boom of fire works on a hand held cam? it sounds alot like that
I'll have you know that “interedting” things happen to me all the time. I just need to make sure I've stretched beforehand and use plenty of vegetable oil.
Two not terribly bright people around me decided that the best place to hide from a fierce lightning storm was outside their truck under a tree. (Not inside the truck, which would have acted as a Faraday cage.) They got struck and the girl, leaning against the truck, got burns where her body was making contact with the metal. If I may generalize, this woman should have some noticeable damage to her hand.
You are all fake.
Amazing,adventurous and sad video. Though somehow she got saved. There may have some serious injuries if lightning had fallen on girl.
What a dumbass. Holding on to a metal railing during a lightning storm, that’s just retarded.