Diver killed by lightning in FL

[PerroneFord]

I got struck underwater in a freshwater spring. We were about 15-20ft deep and took three hits. I felt it mostly in my chest cavity, and my dive buddy mostly in the head. It hit hard enough for me to yell into my reg. Very unpleasant.

So I don't know what the mathmatical models say, but I know where I was, and how it felt.

-P

I presume it was a fresh water lake?

I was told that the human body is a better conductor than fresh water, so you would feel the jolt. In salt water the path of least resistance is the water so you don't feel too much.

Maybe the information I have read was wrong.....and to tell you the truth I never want to find out for sure.

 

[lamont]

good point, and I agree. there is a definate 1/r^2 loss, plus more due to fricitional losses. In an amorphous material such a water, those frictional losses may be very difficult to model. Exponential decay on top of the 1/r^2 may be correct, but the overall loss then would be much greater than just exponential. These losses could approach a 1/r^3 or even 1/r^4 model; maybe a 1/r^2 + e to the minus losses. The point is,energy would dissipate fast. good point.

Plane wave EM radiation hitting a conductor results in exponential decay of the E+B fields into the conductor.

Also, if you've got e^-r/r^2, the exponential term goes to zero faster than the 1/r^2 term and dominates for large-r. Once the exponential term gets in there the overall decay is of exponential form and polynomial 1/r^3 or 1/r^4 decay is not fast enough for large-r (and we are considering large enough r to dissipate a lightning strike).

 

[letsgodiving]

I got struck underwater in a freshwater spring. We were about 15-20ft deep and took three hits. I felt it mostly in my chest cavity, and my dive buddy mostly in the head. It hit hard enough for me to yell into my reg. Very unpleasant.

So I don't know what the mathmatical models say, but I know where I was, and how it felt.

-P

You will feel it in fresh water but not in salt water.

 

[SpiderSense]

scarey. i visited Pompano over July 4th week and practically everyday was a storm with lightening. we still dove every day.

i'm pretty sure current flows more on the surface of wires than through the center. a long time ago, i had speaker cables that were temporally corrected. meaning, it was composed of many strands, varying in diameter (surface area), and twist (distance) so that the sound freq would reach the speakers at the same time. if i remember correctly, their theory was that current travels more on the surface, and that some freq would travel on the surface more than others. and with different rates of travel.

next time, we just wont dive if there's lightening about.

 

[DiveBandit]

Would I be wrong to be surprised that the effected divers tank didn't blow when hit by lightning. I thought that lightning was like 3 or 4 thousand degrees, enough to melt the tank where it hit.....

 

[shoupart]

Has a diver ever died in this sort of accident before? when i read the article, I thought it was some sort of freak event; then I see you people reporting having been struck before (though not fatally, obviously).

 

[diverbob]

He had an Oxygen tank? Was this a deco dive? How many tanks did he have? This is new information. Where did you find that out?

I remember seeing something about an oxygen tank somewhere else, too. However, I take that with a grain of salt. The media, and most non-divers, refer to all tanks as oxygen.

 

[diverbob]

I have heard about these stories before, and have played the what if game with it. What if, it was me out there, and a storm blew in, what would I do. The best thing I have come up with is, like people have mentioned, stay as deep as I can, as long as I can. If it was major storm, the boat never would have gone out anyway. From my Florida experience, these squalls generally dont last very long anyway. That extra 500 PSI I was taught to keep in my tank for emergencies comes into play here. I also have thought about the idea of taking off my BC as soon as I get to the surface, assuming I had to surface in the storm. Granted, there could be bigger waves to deal with. Get out of the BC and hand it up to the boat crew, and then climb out of the water. Just a few thoughts I had.

 

[trigfunctions]

Get out of the BC and hand it up to the boat crew, and then climb out of the water. Just a few thoughts I had.

I don't know - if the water is rough I don't think I would want to take off my BCD. The risk of drowning is higher than the risk of getting hit by lightning. If you do take it off, be sure to take your weight belt off first!

 

[diverbob]

I don't know - if the water is rough I don't think I would want to take off my BCD. The risk of drowning is higher than the risk of getting hit by lightning. If you do take it off, be sure to take your weight belt off first!

I agree, it depends on the situation, but it is an option. And I havent used a weight belt since my DMC class, and OW class before that.