lightning strike

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Crazy! We get lightning here in Florida all the time and just stay under waiting for the storm to pass. This typically only takes 10 minutes or so. We get so many storms that we'd never dive if we were scared off by storms.

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I live in FL as well. Both times I got hit it was in FL caves. Once at Ginnie & the other at Hole in the Wall. We do miss a fair amount of dives however I would rather not push my luck with two strikes already. :wink:

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So, as with Bobby, once bitten twice shy. (In his case bitten twice). So today, there I was with a cart fully of groceries and had just made it to the truck and the bottom dropped out and I started hearing thunder. Wind started picking up to the point that carts left in the parking lot by a$$holes were taking off. I could not let the cart go due to the wind and now it is raining and lighting. I was thinking, "damn I am going to get hit again. I have never unloaded a cart faster.
 
Wow!!!! What a scary thing to have happened! Glad you are okay!!
 
Curious if you felt anything the second before it happened?

I had a near miss once and my hair started to stand up and I could feel the electricity around me. I dropped the shotgun, fell to the ground, and heard the explosion. When I stood back up the impact was around 50ft from me. I can totally relate to the groceries, as I had to close the orchard gates on my way out (Deer eat the little trees). Someone in the past got a side hit when shutting the gates and a fence pole got struck on the other corner.
 
Curious if you felt anything the second before it happened?

I had a near miss once and my hair started to stand up and I could feel the electricity around me. I dropped the shotgun, fell to the ground, and heard the explosion. When I stood back up the impact was around 50ft from me. I can totally relate to the groceries, as I had to close the orchard gates on my way out (Deer eat the little trees). Someone in the past got a side hit when shutting the gates and a fence pole got struck on the other corner.

In my mind, I have went over this thousands of times. I do feel that I had exactly what you said, "a feeling of electricity around me." However, that seemed to last like a split second before I saw a bright fash and was slammed to the concret. The weird this is that the flash was not like seeing a lighting strike / bolt but more like a strobe going off inches from my face.
 
Glad you are ok. Buy a lotto ticket :)

My grandfather got hit while milking cows in the barn.

I don't mess with lightning. This is why during the summer we only do morning boat trips, or bail out of BHB dives if it looks like a storm is approaching.
 
So very glad you are OK!

When I was young, they used to say 1 mile (5 seconds to thunder) was OK. We are having a lot of thunderstorms in our area now, and the weather people are saying 15 miles to safety.
 
We were out shipwreck hunting in the middle of Lake Huron about 4 years ago, and the sonar fish was roughly in 170ft of water bottom was around 230. We saw a "pulse" thunderstorm gathering to our west but decided to continue. When the storm hit all hell broke lose with high winds and lightning everywhere. Then a strike hit the water 300ft behind the boat where the fish was at and fried the boards in the fish and we were worried that the cable also suffered damage. 10 minutes later the storm was done and blue skies again, we pulled up the fish to swap boards and the inside was smoking. 170ft of water and the strike still fried the fish. We never made that mistake again.
 
I live in FL as well. Both times I got hit it was in FL caves. Once at Ginnie & the other at Hole in the Wall. We do miss a fair amount of dives however I would rather not push my luck with two strikes already. :wink:

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Were you at the surface of the water or uw? My understanding of current and conductors is that the current will run along the surface of a conductor--the surface of a body of water or perhaps the cave wall in your case.

We have been caught uw by storms several times and continue to dive but do not get in if we are having lightning. It is my understanding that we are better off uw than at the surface.
 

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