A man in Argentina miraculously survived after being struck by lightning?
According to media reports, a 26-year-old man and several companions in Argentina were sheltering from the rain under a tree when a lightning bolt struck the man directly. Several of his companions scattered, leaving the man motionless under the tree.
Fortunately, the man did not die and was subsequently taken to the hospital for treatment.
Allegedly, the man suffered burns to 20% of his body and remains in intensive care.
It is not a miracle to be struck by lightning to survive, but it is a miracle in itself
The man was struck by lightning but did not die, and was called a "miracle survivor" by the media.
This is mainly because, in people's consciousness, once a person is struck by lightning, it is almost certain that he will die. It is a miracle that a very small number of people are struck by lightning and do not die.
In fact, most of the people who were struck by lightning did not die. Therefore, it is not a miracle that he did not die after being struck by lightning.
On the contrary, in terms of probability, it is a miracle in itself that a person is struck by lightning.
According to statistics, the earth is struck by about 8 million lightning strikes every day, and the total number of lightning strikes in one year exceeds 2.9 billion.
With a global population of 8 billion, if every lightning strike strikes a person, more than 1 in 3 people will be struck by lightning every year.
However, according to the survey, only 1 in 1 million people (about 960,000) will be struck by lightning every year. Therefore, the lightning strike itself is a very unlikely event, which can be called a miracle.
On the contrary, epidemiological surveys show that only 24 per cent of those who were struck by lightning eventually died, and even fewer were killed on the spot. This means that most people survive after being struck by lightning, and only a few are killed.
Globally, lightning-related mortality is estimated to be around 0.2 to 1.7 per million people.
Of course, about 90% of people who are struck by lightning and need medical attention will have different sequelae.
Why don't most of the people struck by lightning die?
This is mainly related to the mechanics and types of lightning damage.
Lightning damage
Most of those who are struck by lightning are able to survive the main reason that they are not directly hit by lightning, and the chance of death from other indirect damage is much smaller.
We know that thunder and lightning are usually the result of warm, moist air rising and coming into contact with ice crystals in atmospheric clouds during the summer.
It is believed that the reduced conductivity of ice crystals in the clouds leads to a significant elevation and that as the warm, moist air rises, the charges within the clouds are redistributed, and a large electric field is formed between the negatively charged lower clouds and the Earth. When the voltage of this electric field is large enough, the air that was originally strongly insulating will break down and discharge, causing lightning to occur.
As a result, lightning is neither alternating or direct current in the general sense, but is regarded as an extremely short, single-phase pulse of current. This unidirectional current can reach voltages of up to 30 million volts and can produce currents greater than 200,000 amperes and high temperatures of up to nearly 28,000°C.
Of course, such a powerful thunderstorm between or inside the clouds.
Thunder and lightning that have the potential to slash people belong to the third category of thunderstorms,
That is, the clouds discharge to the ground, which accounts for 10 to 30 percent of all lightning and is much lower than the lightning "in the sky".
The lightning energy that can hit the Earth is roughly between 30,000 and 110,000 amperes, released in an instant as short as 10-100 ms. Due to the short duration of the discharge, the amount of energy received by the human body is very limited, even if it happens to hit the human body.
Even so, if lightning strikes the human body directly, the damage caused is not beyond the reach of life, and usually leads to death on the spot.
There are several factors that determine the damage caused by lightning strikes the body, including the location and size of the impact, the voltage of the lightning, the resistance of the tissues at the site, the type of current generated, the duration of the contact, and the path the current travels through the body.
Cardiac arrest is most commonly caused by lightning strikes, which are usually caused by high-voltage electric shocks, followed by hypoxic secondary cardiac arrest due to respiratory arrest due to cranial blows or respiratory muscle contractures and breathing disorders.
As mentioned above, lightning strikes are less likely to cause severe burns or skeletal muscle lysis than high-voltage electric shocks because they are extremely short-lived and the energy the body can receive.
Even if burns are present, they are usually superficial, while high-voltage electric shocks tend to cause third-degree burns deep to deep fascia and even bones.
Based on the above factors, lightning damage can be divided into:
Direct injuries (< 5%). When directly struck by lightning, the human body becomes the main channel for generating electricity, and the internal body generates an electric current with a very short duration but a huge amount of energy. It is thought that this current creates a strong magnetic field perpendicular to the surface of the body, which in turn creates a secondary current inside the body. And this secondary current is thought to be the main cause of cardiac arrest and "internal injury".
Contact injuries. When a person touches an object that happens to be struck by lightning (e.g., a tree, a tent pole, an umbrella, etc.), the human body becomes part of the discharge pathway, causing injury.
Side injuries or "splash" injuries. When an object 30 or 50 centimeters away from the body is struck by lightning, an electric current can "jump" or "splash" from the hit object to the human body, causing injury, which is the relatively most common form of lightning strike, accounting for about 30% of all lightning strikes.
Ground current or step voltage damage. When lightning strikes the ground, an electric current can travel through the ground to people or animals near the lightning strike point to cause damage, which is the most common type of damage caused by lightning strikes, accounting for about 50%.
The mechanism of this injury is that there is a significant difference in the voltage on the surface of the two or four landing sites because both humans or animals are on two feet or four limbs, and because the human or animal body is a better conductor than the earth, the current preferentially enters the human body from the place closest to the lightning strike, and then leaves from the point of landing furthest from the lightning strike. The longer the span between different locations, the greater the voltage gradient during the period, the greater the energy received by the body, and the greater the severity of the injury suffered or the possibility of death, hence the name step voltage injury.
Large animals are particularly susceptible to this type of lightning strike because of the large span between their front and rear limbs, which kills a large number of animals each year.
Due to the small span between the two feet of the person, the impact of this injury on the human body is relatively small.
Blunt trauma or shock wave injury. Lightning strikes can create huge shock waves that can throw people out or can hit other objects and cause damage.
It can be seen that the so-called "lightning strike", the vast majority of which are not directly struck by lightning, and the human body is more often due to the indirect injury of the "pond fish disaster" suffered by the proximity to the lightning strike point.
Among them, although the probability of being directly struck by lightning is lower, once hit, it is often directly fatal.
Other indirect injuries, although sometimes fatal, can lead to cardiac arrest. For example, an electric shock event in a rainstorm or flood can be fatal, usually caused by a stepping voltage injury caused by the grounding of a high-voltage wire. Step voltage damage from lightning strikes can also "electrocute".
However, more often than not, these indirect injuries do not result in death. Sometimes, only very minor injuries can be caused, and the victim is not even aware of the occurrence of such injuries at all.
In the case of lightning strikes in Argentina, it was not only the man who fell to the ground who was struck by lightning
For example, in the above-mentioned lightning strike incident in Argentina, judging from the video, the body of the man who was struck by lightning should have been in contact with the trunk of a tree that was struck by lightning and fell to the ground due to the loss of consciousness caused by the contact injury, while the so-called 20% of the burns should have occurred on the surface of the body at the contact site. Fortunately, the electric current flowing through the body did not pass through the heart, so it did not cause cardiac arrest and survived.
However, several of the man's companions, especially the one closer to the tree, were also struck by lightning, but only from the "splash" current, and possibly from the stride voltage, and because of their speed, they were slightly injured and did not even realize that they had also been struck by lightning.
In summary, it can be seen that the common belief that "if you are struck by lightning, you will definitely die" is not true; on the contrary, only a few people who are struck by lightning are killed, and most of them are not fatal.
Therefore, the statement that "a miracle survived by a lightning strike" is also inaccurate.