[manaboutown]

Back in the late 1960s I knew well a guy from Rhode Island who told me his father had survived three lightning strikes. The third left his father paralyzed and in a wheelchair until a craps game at which the father was in attendance at the ice house was broken up by the police at which point the father stood up and ran. My friend himself had been struck by lightning in Soho. He showed me the scars on his leg which were quite impressive and told me that he had been unconscious for some time after the strike Perhaps some folks are just more prone. I also knew an old cowhand who was hit by lightning while on horseback near Chama, NM. He was unconscious lying on the ground three days. He was a very tough guy even in his 70s when I knew him. Now these were probably not full hits but peripheral or they each would have been volatilized.

While in college I lifeguarded at a swimming pool which was hit on one end three times. The strikes were all within a six foot radius. I alway got everyone out of the pool when the afternoon thunderstorms arrived during July and August. Some people did not want to get out but I somehow convinced them when I pointed out where the lightning had struck the pool in the past.