Real-Life Super Powers: Lightning Lad

Lightning is a powerful natural phenomenon. A bolt of lightning can carry 120,000 amps of current—and it only takes 1/10^th of an amp to kill a person.

The chance of a person in the US being struck by lightning in a year is estimated at about 1 in 960,000—literally, one in a million. Of those struck by lightning, about 90 percent survive.

What would you think about a person who was struck by lightning, and who survived? Well, first of all, unlucky to have been struck, but lucky to have survived.

But what would you think about a person who had been struck by lightning twice? That’s a one in a trillion possibility. It’s far more likely to win Powerball than to be struck by lightning twice. So, what would you think? Really unlucky, right? And, if they survived, really lucky, right?

How about a person who was struck by lightning three times? In other words, this one-in-a-million possibility occurred to this person three times already, a one in quintillion chance. Would you start to think that maybe this person might have something strange going on with them? Some odd affinity for lightning? Some bizarre attraction for lightning? And if they survived all three lightning strikes, would you say that this, too, was pretty remarkable? That this person was pretty special in some way?

What if they were struck—and survived—four times?

How about five times?

Or six?

Seven?

A man named Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times during a 35-year period, and survived every strike. His worst injuries were burns.

Admittedly, he worked as a park ranger, which would put him outdoors a lot. But there are many people who work outside all their lives who are never struck by lightning even once, never mind seven times. Also, Sullivan was not outside in the park for several of the strikes. Once, he was driving a truck. Once, he was in his own front yard.

I wouldn’t want to describe this poor man’s terrible experiences as a super power. But it certainly seems like some kind of an ability, or, rather, a pair of abilities, possibly related to each other: the ability to attract lightning, and the ability to survive it.

This extreme example also suggests that people in general have more going on with them than they might think. That the human body is capable of more than we might suppose.

Enough to attract—and survive—lightning.