[TowerTalk] Lightning resuscitation

[Zoran Brlecic]

K3BU at aol.com wrote:

>My father had no reason to lie to me. Those two cases happened. He was a 
>(catholic) priest, he was called to give the last rights to persons. He took the 
>shovel (people were crying over the loss and were incapable to do anything), 
>dug the "grave" and in those two cases life returned.
>
You have still not shown causation. How does it follow from two isolated 
cases (even if they occurred) that burying a person after he had been 
hit by lightning causes the "return of life"?

Was the person clinically dead, i.e. no heartbeat, no blood flow to the 
brain (4-5 minutes)? If so, by the time the priest showed up and dug the 
graves, there is no way in hell the person could be revived, and even if 
he could, he'd have suffered a severe brain damage.

The only way someone can be "revived" this long after the lightning 
strike is if his heart beat continued, providing blood flow to the 
brain. If that's the case, there is really no revival, but a simple 
regaining of consciousness.

Then there's the problem of the "charge dissipation". If a human body is 
a conductor, then how can it be charged by an electrical current flow 
through it? And even if it can, after falling to the ground, any 
remaining charge would be dissipated almost immediately unless the 
person wore a body suit made of mylar.

The effects of the electric current on the human body are well known - 
some of them are a temporary loss of consciousness, body control and an 
irregular heartbeat, temporary shutdown of the nervous system. There is 
nothing magic about burying anyone in the ground after suffering an 
electric shock, otherwise everyone working with high voltages would be 
carrying a shovel with them. Instead of practicing voodoo solutions, the 
rescuers would be much better advised to apply the recommended procedure 
for dealing with electric shock victims.


73 .... WA7AA