Man struck in the head by lightning, survives with scar

fuad lawal

May 27, 2015 8:36 PM

A man in Idaho is lucky to be alive after surviving a direct lightning strike to the head this Memorial Day weekend.

Ryan Cross, 34, from Nampa, Idaho, was left with a red scar down his torso after the bolt entered the top of his head and exited through the base of his back.

Mr Cross was hit by lightning during a camping trip with friends near Idaho City, when he got caught in a storm while riding his four-wheeler.

He found shelter under a tree in the woods and was looking for directions home on his phone's map to find a way out when he was hit by the lightning bolt.

The father-of-two fell unconscious and was rushed to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center with bleeding on the brain and doctors feared he could be paralyzed.

The clothing he was wearing was shredded from his body after the strike and hot to the touch.

His wife, Heather Cross, recalled the horrifying moment she was told what had happened to her husband, grabbed their two children and drove to the hospital.

She said: "I really just tried to stay strong. The drive from Nampa to here (Boise) was the longest drive of my life. I didn't know what I was going to walk into."

Fortunately Mr Cross was alert and appeared to be improving, managing to walk around a little.

The odds of being struck by lightning in the U.S. is 1 in 700,000 each year. In a lifetime, those odds drop to 1 in 3,000.

It is estimated that more than one hundred bolts of lightning strike the Earth every second.

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