What a shocker!

[Billy]

Nature: beautiful one minute, and out to get you the next!
Glad he won this time and what a story to tell!!

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/...ar-him-knocked-over-by-force-of-impact/269051

Cheers,
Billy.

 

[Metamorphic]

Yeh Billy, the Top End is a dangerous place in a storm.

Lived and worked in Darwin for 15 years and saw some of the best lightning shows you will ever see.

Its one of the most lightning prone areas on earth in the wet season.

Darwin can produce over 2000 lightning strikes in a few hours of storm activity.....more than Perth gets in an entire year.

The Aboriginal people were very scared of lightning and with good reason, they always used to head indoors and take cover.

Smart advice!

Glad he was ok.....

 

[Nanjim]

Old mate might have to buy a lotto ticket ....

 

[Billy]

Yeh Billy, the Top End is a dangerous place in a storm.

Lived and worked in Darwin for 15 years and saw some of the best lightning shows you will ever see.

Its one of the most lightning prone areas on earth in the wet season.

Darwin can produce over 2000 lightning strikes in a few hours of storm activity.....more than Perth gets in an entire year.

The Aboriginal people were very scared of lightning and with good reason, they always used to head indoors and take cover.

Smart advice!

Glad he was ok.....

Its certainly awe inspiring stuff Meta, I do enjoy getting out amongst it but its a little like anything we do, its not without its risks I spose.
Great info on Darwin mate, it would be an eye opener to live there!
Oh!, I nearly forgot, WELCOME BACK!!
Cheers,

Billy.

 

[dwt]

Sounds like young Max has the makings of our next Victoria Cross recipient, fair set of stones on the boy to turn back and to go help the guy out

 

[Metamorphic]

At the mines, we used to have lightning rods set up on the high waste dumps. This would divert strikes away from the raised dumper bodies on the trucks tipping off.

It didnt always work and we had a few incidents of strikes on dump trucks which usually ended up with its tyres on fire. Very dangerous considering these tyres are gas charged and the size of a house.

What probably saved this guys life was the fact he may have been 'mid step' when it hit.
Meaning he had one foot on the ground and one in the air.

Voltage requires a complete circuit to produce current through it. If one foot is in the air that circuit is broken And current ( the killer amps) cannot pass. Voltage will still pass but its harmless without current.

When i done excavator training, we had to do an emergency drill for a situation if you brought down live powerline wires accidently on your machine.

The drill was, dont touch anything with both hands, exit machine by jumping clear and land on one foot. Hop away from machine on one foot till you clear a 10m zone around the machine. ( live wires on your digger can extend an electrical field for 10m on the ground around it)
Earth yourself with both feet at once and you will fry.

If ever you see a car accident with a power pole and live wires are down across the car....DO NOT attempt to approach the car on foot to save the occupants or you will only add to the body count.

Birds can sit on high voltage power lines because they are only touching one line and not earthed to the ground....thereby no entry and exit circuit for voltage to produce current. If they could stretch and put each leg on a seperate line, its fried birdy.

Cheers

 

[Metamorphic]

A Cat 777 after a lightning strike in the Top End (NT).

I should have mentioned that unless the machine is on fire and you must bail or burn, stay put and dont touch anything till help arrives.

This is only for live wires touching machine......In a lightning strike, its different as the voltage hits, and then is gone!

 

[kurrajong]

I was reading some tyre industry stuff recently and included was an investigation report on a dumpy tyre explosion from lightning.
The guts of it was that the tyre inner liner(the inner wall of the tyre which seala the air in) was pyrolised by the lightning with the resulting flammable gases
causing the explosion.
An awesome demonstration of the energy involved in lightning
http://www.otraco.com/custom/files/...ightning-tyre-explosion-report-april-2004.pdf