Re: [Paddlewise] Lightning Paddles-St.Elmo's Fire--Reply

From: kayak001 <kayak001_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 5 May 98 15:15:15 -0500
 On 5/5/98 14:14PM, John Somers wrote:

>Neil Harrison wrote:
>	"if the lightning hits the water anywhere in the vicinity of 
>your boat, you're still fried.  At least, that's what they told us in the 
>Wilderness Advanced First Aid class that I took.."
>
>	Neil, this is very interesting, especially if the class instructors had
>any real-life data.  Did they say what they based this on?  I would expect
>the water to disperse the frying somewhat.  

They didn't qualify the statement, but I forgot to mention that they told 
us that the effect of lighting in water is usually mitigated outside of a 
200 yard radius of a strike because of the dispersion of the charge in 
water, as I remember.  This was a Wilderness Medical Associates course 
which was GREAT, so I'll take them at face value.  The basic thing that I 
came away with was that lightning in a wilderness context is to be 
avoided at all cost!  


-------------------------------------------------------------------
                    Neil Harrison-Houston, Texas
          email: nil_at_nol.net   (_at_ _at_)  web: www.nol.net/~nil/   
----------------------------ooO~(_)~Ooo----------------------------
                      100% recycled electrons

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Received on Tue May 05 1998 - 13:15:44 PDT

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