ABSTRACT

Lightning is a ubiquitous natural phenomenon with the potential for producing many different types of injury. Our first scientific knowledge of the nature of lightning came from Benjamin Franklin who conducted his many well-known experiments on electricity, beginning about 1750. A lightning flash is seen to flicker. Shutterless high-speed photography of flashes reveals that the discharge progresses in steps, which results in a cloud-to-ground stroke. The types of pathophysiological responses due to a lightning strike depend on the nature and intensity of the current and the pathway of the current through the body which can be modeled as an electrolytic resistor enveloped by an insulator. When lightning strikes the ground, current flows therein and a sudden voltage rise appears between two points on the ground, the potential being known as the step voltage or earth-potential rise. Although lightning is an outdoor event, indoor and outdoor subjects have been shocked.