Sometimes being struck by lightning can be awesome, this is a Lichtenberg scar.

I don't know if it's caused issues with me. I was struggling with a lot of things before my strike too. I know that there is substantial research to link lightning strike victims with depression, impulsivity, PTSD. They say that the symptoms present a lot like PTSD, except the causation is likely the unknown effects of passing that much electricity though a human brain and body.

I was a Wilderness EMT in the North Adirondacks when an expedition got caught in a sudden severe lightning storm. They had followed outdoor lightning safety protocol to the book, and had the bad luck of catching a direct strike, which tried to ground itself in the deep roots of a tree.

The only problem was the roots were tangled up, as roots will be, in a network of strong roots - which, for all intents and purposes became a nice big bundle of uninsulated cables running unseen under the group. So, pretty much they had been blasted upwards from the splash strike underneath their feet (through thick insulated foam they had been squatting on).

Amazingly - and fortunately - nobody was killed, and it was classified "near miss".

We got on scene and it looked like ... rapture, or something. Just pair of boots strewn around the site. The people had been blown out of their boots by the energy.

Suddenly, the DEC (Dept of Environmental Conservation) officer I was responding with snapped towards me immediately as I was turning towards him. We both said, "Hey - you feel that too?"

Static. That taste. That tingle.

And then I was struck. I felt my world get rocked and go whitish blue, like I had been hit by a freight train on crack. I remember the split second before feeling enveloped by the light and the energy, before I went numb. I guess I pissed myself and couldn't control my jaw - like, it was loose and I was drooling everywhere, and I had to very deliberately tell myself: OK, brain: close jaw. I wasn't scared. I just didn't know what was up right then. In this weird way (note: I am not religious at all - at all) I wasn't sure I was still on earth, until slowly I could feel the dirt under my hands and see the trees around me.

It must've only been three seconds - probably less, maybe a little more - but I'll remember them for the rest of my life. Maybe not some things. I'm sure many of the details will disappear with time. But, I will never forget that smell and taste - a little metal, a little burning, a lot of ... electric - just before my world disappeared into a flash of blue and white.

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