Posted on 04/01/2012 11:59:29 AM PDT by Mozilla
This wasn't the one-in-a-million strike a Kansas lotto player was hoping for.
A Wichita man was hit by lightning on Thursday night just hours after buying three tickets in the record-setting $656 Mega Millions lottery, drawn on Friday.
Bill Isles, a volunteer storm spotter for the National Weather Service, even made an eerie quip to a pal about his long odds moments after buying the tickets at a local grocery store.
"I've got a better chance of getting struck by lightning" than winning the jackpot, Isles said, according to Reuters.
The wannabe mega-millionaire had toted his ham radio into his backyard to check for storm activity at around 9:30 p.m. when a towering bolt of lightning slammed into the ground nearby.
"It threw me to the ground quivering," Isles, 48, told Reuters. "It kind of scrambled my brain and gave me an irregular heartbeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
I’m more struck by the New York Daily News using the word “toted.”
What are the odds?
Well, technically it WAS more likely than winning.
The winning PICK THREE in Illinois the day after Obama’s election was.............................666. Really.
I smell “April Fool”.
So some guy WAS hit by lightning after buying a lotto ticket!
I think it's legit. It has a credible media source. A HAM operator being a weather spotter? Yes some are part of NOAA/NWS Weather Spotters. NWS monitors their communications during storms for tornado or hail etc. He was most likely simply standing outside and happened to have his hand held HAM Radio. The radio had nothing to do with the lightning strike though.
I think in the past week something like a billion lines were played. I didn't win, but I'm happy to report I also did not get hit by lightning!
Small odds for that to happen, but when he was 5 years old his father was killed when he was struck by lightning.
Right before he was struck, he told his friends not to worry because the chances of him getting hit were near impossible.
Why would you say that?
A handheld radio with the ability to transmit actually is one of the better lightning attractors I can think of.
It has metal in it, it has an ANTENNA, and when transmitting the generated signal creates a change in the temperature of the antenna, the air, and creates a 'conduit' for any nearby electrical charge.
An umbrella can funnel ground based charges through your body and up through the metal pole. I can only imagine that a transmitting radio antenna would be even better.
It's April 1st.
And this story started TWO DAYS AGO.
AND IT'S COMPLETELY TRUE.
Here is the article from the Wichita News Site.
Lightning Strike Survivor Feels Lucky To Be Alive
"Around 9:30 p.m., as a severe storm moved through Wichita, a man was struck by lightning in his back yard in the 6300 block of east Orme, just southwest of Kellogg and Woodlawn."
"The victim, Bill Isles, was coherent and used an amateur radio to call out for help. The chase coordinator in the KAKEland Weatherplex heard his call on our "ham" radio and called 911. "
Regardless to the title supplied, he didn't get hit directly.
"I don't think it was a direct strike because I didn't get any burns. It's not a feeling or something I'd want to go through again," said Bill Isles.
Then you need to blow your nose, because the story is true.
With 'witnesses' employed by a local media source.
"When Bill called for help through the ham radio, our KAKEland chase coordinator, Mike Mathia, heard his call. Mathia and two other amateur radio operators called 911."
That “near” will get you every time.
The antenna has rubber on the outer casing. The radio had very little metal comared to what would have surrounded him. The antenna was what at the most 6 inches high? How tall was the man. Now had he been holding a guy wire, metal pipe, or near a culvert then I can see the metal being a factor. If he had it hooked straight to his base tower instead of the rubber duck I can see a factor. Otherwise no.
Yes, but lightning doesn’t come from the sky and hit the ground. Lightning is the result of an accumulated charge which is released to the atmosphere. Lightning goes from the ‘ground’ up.
That is why there are lightning arrestors. They don’t actually arrest anything, they simply disperse the excess ground charge into the air slowly.
Lightning occurs between two points that have a negative excess of charge to an area that has a low positive charge.
Walking across dry grass in shoes can cause an accumulated charge.
And it’s a moot point , as the lightning stuck ‘near’ him, and not directly to him or the radio. The radio may or may not have had any effect on the incident. He’s alive, which is what is really important.
His radio had ZERO effect to being or not being hit. It was a non issue and could not have been a factor except for indirectly placing him where he was at while doing his task.
It is safe to use portable handheld communication devices during storms such as cordless phones, cell phones, and this would include a HAM radio handheld as long as any of the above mentioned are not directly connected to an external power source or as in a phone line cordless phone base unit the phone line directly.
In other words in a storm a cordless phone is safe too use. But stay away from the base because if lightning runs in on the line yes it can harm you. But will that then jump cordless to cordless or base to cordless? NO. Cellphone use in storms is safe. If cellphones are safe then HAMs not connected to an external meaning tower are safe as well. A car can be hit and it transit the antenna on a mobile unit connected too a rooftop of car antenna but that is rare.
That is why the storm chasers and Skywarn {Ham Operators} many times either use handheld on their person or their mobile radio in their vehicle during their activation for weather warnings.
The man was hit simply because he was standing in the area the lightning hit formed. It was his unfortunate or possibly fortunate location that saved him. Had he been standing empty handed he would have still been hit.
I have been monitoring radios via multiple scanners for many years and when storms get close I switch from external outdoor antenna to rubber duck to monitor HAM traffic. The HAM Radio Operators {Not to be confused with The Storm Chasers} will be on the air during those times reporting their visual confirmation of conditions with their own eyes tracking it. These are the ones who know best what is safe and what is not safe radio transmitting conditions and how to be safe. That is why he had his handheld radio.
They communicate from handheld HAM radio to a nearby repeater that is designated as the SKYWARN frequency during storms. Local National Weather Service Offices and often TV weather department meteorologist will monitor those local repeaters as their radar can not confirm ground contact of a tornado. Human eyes can though. If you listen to them you can get sometimes several minutes heads up on tornadoes and it's tracking.
But did he win part of the MegaMillions jackpot? That’s the part I’m skeptical about.
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