by Kieran McGovern Pre-Intermediate
In 1942 lightning struck Roy C.
Sullivan for the first time. The US park ranger was working up in a
lookout tower when a bolt shot through his
leg. It knocked his big toenail off.
‘I was lucky,’ Roy told his friends. ‘I
can live without one big toenail. And at least it
won’t happen again! Lightning never strikes
twice.’
Unfortunately this is not quite correct. Lightning is
unlikely to hit the same spot on the ground twice. But tall
buildings and structures are different. A 60-meter tower in
Florida can expect a hit every year.
Another
Strike
From then on Roy did stay away from towers. And for nearly
thirty years nothing happened.
Then in 1969 Roy was driving along a mountain road during a
storm. He thought he was safe inside his car. He was wrong.
The lightning bolt knocked Roy
unconscious. It burned off his
eyebrows. ‘Why me?’ Roy complained when he
woke up in hospital. ‘This is the second
time!’
Another strike happened just a
year later. Roy was walking across his yard to get the
mail. The lightning bolt burned left his shoulder.
Roy’s
bad luck continued. In 1972 he was standing in the office
at the ranger station. Perfectly safe? Not for Roy.
This time the lightning set his hair on fire. ‘This
is not fair!’ cried Roy as he threw a bucket of water
over his head.
Hat
It took a year for his hair to grow back. He began wearing
a hat. Surely he was safe now?
The next strike went through Roy’s hat and set his
hair on fire again. Throwing him out of his truck, it
knocked his left shoe off and it burned his legs.
A sixth strike came on a campsite in 1976. This one injured
his ankle.
The final lightning strike
occurred on a fishing trip in 1977. It sent Roy back to
hospital with chest and stomach burns.
Why?
Why did Roy suffer a record seven lightning strikes? Nobody
knows for sure. Roy came from Virginia, in the south of the
USA. Storms and lightning strikes are common in that part
of the world. And Roy’s work did put him more
at risk.
Perhaps it was just bad luck. But in a way Roy was a very
lucky man. After all, he is the only person to
survive
seven lightning
strikes. He died in 1983.
