# What will happen if I get hit by lightning? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433 "2003-07-18T18:09:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/1 "2003-07-18T18:09:17Z")
The only reason I ask is because I use a wheelchair. It’s a manual wheelchair, so there’s no battery and I have rubber tires. The frame is metal, aluminum I think, because no magnets stick to it. So would anything happen to me if I were hit by lightning? Assume that if I’m out in a storm I would be wet, but since I’m sitting down and no part of me is touching the ground what would happen? Would there be any difference if I were walking in the rain and what would it be? Would I just get a jolt but not as severe? ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/2 "2003-07-18T18:52:10Z")
Since you are on rubber wheels, you have some degree of protection. Sadly, you do not have the safety that the Faraday cage of a car body represents. You might be better off if your wheelchair had a dragging chain to ground its frame. People who are struck by lightning go through two different sorts of trauma. Their internal organs tend to get cooked by the incredibly high current (i.e. 30,000,000 Volts at hundreds or more Amps). Another equally serious sort of damage is done to conductive nerve paths and the autonomic systems. Cardiac and pulmonary arrest are typical results. If you are in your wheelchair during a thunder storm you will want to seek shelter. DO NOT park under a tall tree. You need to get inside a building, under a covered walkway or into an underground tunnel. ---
**Author:** ![herman\_and\_bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f1d935/32.png) [@herman\_and\_bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/herman_and_bill)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/3 "2003-07-18T19:26:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > \*\*Since you are on rubber wheels, you have some degree of protection. . \*\* That bolt of lightning just streaked a mile thru the sky, I don’t think that inch or so of rubber is gonna make much of a difference. I imagine you would get hit in the head and then the current will find the easiest exit, thru your arm thru the wheel or down your leg and thru your foot. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/4 "2003-07-18T19:38:31Z")
No, rubber wheels afford exactly zero protection. The reason a car is a safe place is not because of the rubber tires, but because the metal body and frame of the car conducts the current around you, where it discharges out the bottom into the ground. A person in a wheelchair would be at roughly the same risk as anyone else in the area, perhaps somewhat less, due to the lower height. ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/5 "2003-07-19T00:02:01Z")
Darn. I guess I’ll have to give up the hobby of flying kites in thunderstorms before I even get started. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/6 "2003-07-19T00:04:08Z")
Nah, just take a tall person with you and let him hold the kite string when the clouds start looking dark… ---
**Author:** ![NadaHappyCamper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/278dde/32.png) [@NadaHappyCamper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NadaHappyCamper)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/7 "2003-07-19T20:43:57Z")
You would most certainly become a statistic. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/8 "2003-07-19T20:58:23Z")
At the Boston Museum of Science where they have the world’s largest Van De Graff (sp?) generator, they mention about a car’s lightning protection. Although the rubber tires offer a small amount of insulation, you’ need about 50 _ **feet** _ of rubber for it to be effective. As someone mentioned, the real protection comes from the car’s acting as a Faraday Cage. Due to something called the “skin effect” (high voltages tending to travel on the outside of conductors), those inside a car are safe. So, since your wheelchair does not have a 50 foot rubber insulation and 2) you are totally exposed (no Faraday Cage), please seek shelter as someone else suggested. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/9 "2003-07-19T21:22:11Z")
Your rubber tyres will offer some protection, despite what other posters say. Prior to the vast majority of lightening strikes, tracers rise up from potential targets, the first to reach an area of sky where the insulation properties of air breaks down with respect to the massive stored charge will be the tracer that attracts the downstrike. Photographs of lightening strikes have revealed that several tracers may well rise, but only one makes the connection, and those uncompleted strike paths are clearly visible. Being on an insulated platform makes the formation of tracers very much less likely, and any that do form will likely be shorter than others in the immediate vicinity and so less likely to attract that downstrike. Just about every safety site will advise you during electric storms to lay as low as possible if you feel a sudden tingling of your hair of if it is drawn upwards, this is because there could be a tracer emanating from you, and hence a potential strikepath. If you are still unlucky enough to form a cohesive strike path when a tracer develops from you, then you are likely to be toast, you might get ‘lucky’ at the current might pass around you through the metalwork of your chair, but there will be tremendous heat developed that part of you touching the framework will be burned, part of you is likely to form the current path, so you may have charred flesh, almost certainly your eardrums will be perforated, synthetic clothing will probably melt and stick to your body. During actual strike conditions the tyres will not offer much protection, but there is significantly less chance of being struck in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/10 "2003-07-19T21:43:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by casdave \* > **Your rubber tyres will offer some protection, despite what other posters say.** [Bullshit.](http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/hanford/wxmyths/svrwx1/svrwx1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/11 "2003-07-19T22:05:44Z")
You will note that I did state that once you are in the path of a strike, rubber tyres are no protection, but those same tyres will reduce the chances of being struck. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/12 "2003-07-20T19:18:45Z")
Shouldn’t we also take into account the fact that lightning and **rain** usually go together? Granted that water is a **poor** conductor of electricity, but wouldn’t it seriously cut down on the insulating factor of rubber tires? In other words, the probability of “tracers” originating from a person in a wheelchair would increase when rain is on the rubber tires. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/13 "2003-07-20T19:59:45Z")
You will become [Captain](http://www.proudrobot.com/hembeck/shazam01.jpg)[Marvel!](http://www.hembeck.com/Covers/MarvelFamily41.htm)[SHAZAM!](http://www.proudrobot.com/hembeck/shazam1.jpg) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![chewbasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbe5ce/32.png) [@chewbasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chewbasta)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/14 "2003-07-20T22:07:05Z")
Ground it. Also, you may die, fry, develope a third eye (j/k?)… Depends on the bolt, and your resistance in the body in terms of electrical. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-i-get-hit-by-lightning/189433/15 "2003-07-22T19:52:27Z")
Since thunder is incredibly loud, even if I survived a lightning strike, would I likely become permanently deaf because of the noise?