Wife nearly died Sunday Night

[Harold in CR]

It was a typical Rainy season night. Medium density rain falling,
little bit of wind, and the sound of thunder in the distance. Wife
was preparing clothes to be ironed.

Instead, she decided to make hot chocolate for us. I had already
disconnected all the electronics from the outlets, computer, modem,
UPS, television, and ampiliers from the external antenna, outside.

Lights were blinking, as usual, and we were as content as possible.
I was sitting in my favorite chair at the computer desk, when, SNAP
lightning hit something, DAMN close. Wife yelped, as usual, and I
turned and looked at her. She was standing by the stack of clothes piled
on a bar stool type chair I had built, and the house was filling with
the odor of burnt plastic and ozone. I grabbed a flashlight and started
searching for smoke or fire. Wife was kinda slumped on the stack of clothes
and seemed fine, so, I went out the back door and looked toward the shop.
All was dark, no fire. Came back in the house and wife was slumping more toward
the floor and had moved about 6 feet to another chair, presumably to sit in.
She was making weird sounds and having trouble breathing. Then, she slid down toward
the floor and caught her chin on the chair and was choking. I grabbed her and
it was like trying to move a sack of water. Limp as could be. She had 1 foot caught
in the toe kick of a portable island cabinet I built, and I had quite a time getting
it loose.

Finally, I had her propped against the base cabinets in the kitchen and sitting on
the floor.She had difficulty breathing and heart was beating probably just below fibrillation.
I ran to check more areas as the odor was very strong and I suspected to find fire, somewhere.
Ran back to check on wife and she was in dire straits. I moved/dragged her into the living room
and managed to get her on the sofa.She only weighs 95 pounds, but, being limp, felt like 500
pounds. Went to the phone to call for help and, of course, it was dead. Went back and wife was breathing a little
easier,and heart rate was down some. She has a valve problem as it is.

After a bit she was not comfortable, so, wanted to get on her rocking chair. Don't think THAT wasn't a fun deal.
Anyway, an hour or so later, I talked her into laying on the bed, to reduce pressure from sitting. She was hurting
badly and arms and legs wouldn't work. So, I got her up and dragged her into the bedroom and onto the bed.

Took a final look all around, and, finding NO smoke, sat down to catch my breath. Kept checking on her throughout
the night and she is still recovering. Turns out, she was in the fridge and had reached out to close the door when
she was zapped by the lightning strike. This is in the middle of the house, roughly. She said yesterday, she was lifted
off the floor and saw an arc oflightning jump between her knees. There is no sign of burning
anywhere on her. She is mostly fine, just weak as water.

Yesterday, I went outside and checked all the wires, especially the phone line. Everything is fine. What the hell ??
Happened to glance over at the TV antenna, and could not make out the co/ax going from the metal pole to the house.
Went and took a better look, and, the section of co/ax, about 6' long, was laying on the ground. Lightning had hit it somethere
and burned it off at the pole and at the roofline of the house.We just put a new metal roof on this summer. There is a hole
in the metal roof that I could probably stick a pencil through, and the section of cable was burned in 3 areas. I went in the house
and pulled the pre amp out from behind the brand new TV, and saw soot on the table/shelf. The pre amp was burned up inside.

Now, all you engineers and such, how the hell did lightning get from there, to about 18' away with no cable in the area, and strike the wife ???
I'm thinking it was a big static charge, but, why from the fridge and to her through the cement/ceramic tile floor ??

 

[nutnspecial]

Wow man, I'm just glad you guys are OK!!!

I can also add that a lightning rod might not be a bad idea. Other than that, electricity likes the path of least resistance, so it wanted to find ground anywhere around or under that strike. Kitchens have that little extra copper, plus the steel aspects of appliances, plus a human in this case. All of which have less resistance than air, or wood/plaster etc. How close was the antenna to the hole to the kitchen??

 

[The fingers]

Praying that she recovers completely. It can cause internal damage without visible external signs, might want to see a Dr. just in case.
It came about 100 yards from me once and I'll never forget it. Was a dry strike or I would probably have been electrocuted.

 

[Harold in CR]

She has Dr appt next week. Still feeling a little woozy and weak.

 

[bigmoose]

First Harold, sure glad your better half is doing better! What an experience and a blessing she is doing fine.

As for lightning, a good friend took me to see the farmhouse he was raised in. Old 1900's construction, two stories, with lightning rods and a second story kitchen. The gas stove in that kitchen has been hit 4 times by lightning! Go figure. Pointy lightning rods should have taken the hit, but they didn't.

When I was a kid I was an amateur radio operator. I had a big beam antenna (Hy Gain TH6DXX) up on a 40 foot telephone pole. The beam of the antenna was longer than my parents lot was wide. The antenna overhung a widows very small ranch house. Can you believe the lightning missed my antenna, and hit her chimney obliterating it?

Lightning behaves very strangely and unpredictably. It bounces, it skips, it skims.

 

[LockH]

DANG. " sure glad your better half is doing better" Ditto here...

Years ago was crewing a sailboat out in the middle of Lake Erie, lightning all around us (alum. spar mast plus wire shrouds), and Skipper was attaching thick car battery charging cables to the wire shrouds to trail in the water... to help ground any lightning strikes. Any chance you might rig an metal antenna and metal wire cables nearby up a tree maybe? (To attract away from house circuits.) Just a thought.

Now. How to figure on storing the stuff.

 

[speedmd]

Sorry to hear of the injury Harold. Hope she recovers quickly. When I built my barn and put a metal roof on it, I talked to many old time farmers about various grounding options. The lightning rod options were mixed reviews, but all suggested I at least tie some grounding wire from a few of the roof clips to the ground rod that I hammered a few feet below the bottom of the frost wall foundation. Consensus was that this would at least prevent large static charges accumulating on the roof making it a stray target with no easy direct path to ground. Mega volts is Scary stuff. GE high voltage lab used to show how far they could shoot bolts of it across the large test lab bay. 30 feet was easy. Amazing to see that while standing a few feet away behind a chain link fence cage. I hope to never see it that close in the wild.

 

[footloose]

What an awful experience for both of you. Hope your wife recovers quickly and completely.

 

[bigmoose]

I thought I would add a little more on lightning protection since a discussion started on it. Back when I was building my house I got to KSC a lot and got to talk with the lightning guys on how they protected the launch pads.

They were real big on "draining off the charge" before it reached strike amplitude. A way to make a charge drainer was to sandwich a layer of copper screening between 2 4x8 foot sheets of 1/2 inch plywood. Then drive 8penny or 10 penny nails through that sandwich on 6 inch centers with points up. Ground the screen and place the sheet as high up as you could.

As for my house, they recommended against lightning rods on my chimney, as they said it would ensure it got hit, and hit often. If the connections aged and corroded with time, they felt problems would escalate. Also the EMP from hits going down the chimney wouldn't be so good for the electronics in my home and laboratory.

They said my best protection was to erect 50 foot towers about 20 feet from the house and aligned with the main roof line. Then string a strike wire between them. They said this would provide a cone of protection for the house. If you look at high voltage towers you can often see two small strike wires up on the top.

I didn't implement either option, but I have kept metal caps off my chimney and I planted fast growing trees around the property. So far, thank the Lord, no hits on the house; but two trees have been hit that were about 50 feet from the house over the 30 years we have been here. Also the neighbors chimney has been hit and it exploded from the strike.

 

[liveforphysics]

Lightning may optionally follow a path of ionized gasses from relativistic speed particles. This essentially means it will do whatever it wants if the right cosmic ray event is seeding the plasma break-down trail.

In the datacenter industry, we had facilities that got hit on the same low spot repeatedly, despite having an array of lightning rods configured on all corners and the center of the roof which never showed strike damage.

When lightning hits a structure, it can exist as corona/plasma over essentially any surfaces in any path in any shape. Some of the more rare types include free floating balls of lightning that sustain for a number of seconds, then exploding or fading to nothing seemingly randomly. In the case of the coaxial lead and the fridge, I bet the devices share a common ground plane at some junction in your home, which you perhaps also want to inspect for damage.

Your wife got an amazing new life experience and lived to tell the tale! Congratulations to her and you!

 

[bigmoose]

Lightning may optionally follow a path of ionized gasses ...

So true. We lost a missile launched in heavy weather when the nosecone punched through the top of the cloud layer. That triggered the lightning that traveled right down the exhaust plume of ionized gasses to the pad. Pad damage was negligible; but it flipped the most significant bit in the guidance computer and resumption of flight path was impossible due to programmed slew rate limits on the engine gymbal hydraulics. A very expensive lightning bolt!

 

[Harold in CR]

Great info, Dave and Luke.

free floating balls of lightning

. One day, when I was a lineman for the Power Co. in NJ., I had a ball of those gasses pass right over me as I was working on the line. It traveled for a couple of miles, and, every time it came to a line insulator, it would blow like a water splash, and keep right on trucking down the line, until it was out of sight.

Down here, they don't use a grounded house wiring system. Just use 2 runs of insulated stranded wire and usually all the same color or whatever they can beg, borrow or steal. You really oughta try working on these systems. Houses catch fire all the time from overheated wires, let alone lightning. My system has a common ground . Maybe these Ticos are on to something

I have checked everything I can access and nothing is showing, just where it actually did damage. The amplifier up on the antenna "looks" OK, but, I just bought an impedence transformer to go from the Antenna to the co/ax.

DAMN, big lightning. Gotta GO.