Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome

by Bob Madgic

  Sometimes the polarity within a cloud is inverted: Negative particles ascend and positive ones descend. In inverted polarity, positive charges in the bottom of the cloud first rush to the ground and create a lightning channel. Electrons then flow from the ground up through the channel back to the cloud. Such reversed, “positive cloud-to-ground” lightning strikes usually carry more charge, last tens of milliseconds longer, and are less branched than the more common negative to-ground lightning. Why or how this reversal of charge occurs is unknown. Indeed, there is much about lightning that remains a mystery.

  One hundred lightning bolts strike hit the earth every second, or more than 8.6 million a day. Annually, twenty million lightning bolts strike the ground in the United States.

  A lightning bolt can contain an electrical potential of one hundred million volts and reach a temperature of fifty-five thousand degrees Fahrenheit, which is five times hotter than the sun. The average flash is brighter than ten million, hundred-watt lightbulbs. A single strike can generate more energy than all U.S. power plants combined at that instant. Theoretically, a thunderstorm could meet the nation’s electricity needs for four days.

  Lightning has an impact on more than just the atmosphere: Its electrons can travel beyond the upper atmosphere and affect the radiation belt in the ionosphere for several hundred thousand square miles. A lightning strike in Texas, for example, might influence the radiation belt over South Dakota.

  It all happens in a brilliant, single one-thousandth of a second.

  WHEN INTENSE HEAT generated by lightning causes the surrounding air to expand explosively, the resulting shock wave, also referred to as a sonic boom, is thunder. Sound travels at about eleven hundred feet per second, so it takes five seconds for the sound of thunder to reach someone a mile away. In contrast, light travels at 186,300 miles per second; anyone near or far who has a clear view can see a lightning flash instantaneously. Counting the seconds between a lightning flash and thunderclap is an easy way to gauge how far away the lightning is. Importantly, the distance between one lightning strike and the next in a sequence of strikes can be six to eight miles. If someone hears thunder forty seconds or less after the flash, the lightning is eight miles or less away—in other words, within striking distance of that person. Whenever you can hear thunder, the next lightning bolt can strike you.

  When a lightning strike will occur is completely unpredictable. Moreover, there is no safe interval between one bolt and the next; the second may follow almost immediately. Where a lightning bolt will hit is more predictable, although still a crapshoot. Lightning usually assails the closest and most accessible object, not necessarily the highest point, as many people believe. It’s more a matter of which objects respondto electrical charges in the cloud. The downward-moving stepped leader from the cloud draws a reaction or discharge from the closest point, which often is the highest object around, such as a tall tree, rock outcropping, or mountain summit. And contrary to popular belief, metal does not attract lightning. It does, however, concentrate and conduct electricity far more efficiently than most other materials.

  After a lightning bolt hits something directly, the electrical charges may then shoot off in multiple directions, conducted by receptive matter such as water or damp ground, rock, or trees.

  LIGHTNING CAN DEVASTATE a human being. Except for floods, it kills more people in the United States annually than any other weather event. In each of the last thirty years, on average, lightning killed sixty-seven people and injured about three hundred in this country. However, these are only documented cases. The true number of fatalities may be closer to a hundred and the number of injuries well in excess of five hundred—there is no requirement that lightning injuries be reported, and many victims don’t seek treatment.

  Based on reported data, the odds that people living in America will be struck by lightning are about one in seven hundred thousand. Including the additional estimated deaths and injuries puts the odds at 1 in 240,000. The odds that you will be struck in your lifetime are one in three thousand, while your chance of being affected by someone who has been struck is one in three hundred. Those who live where there are numerous thunderstorms and who spend a lot of time outdoors are at much higher risk.

  From 1990 through 2003, the most lightning deaths each year occurred in Florida—twice as many as in any other state—followed by Texas, Colorado, Ohio, and North Carolina. Eighty percent of all lightning fatalities are male. A man playing golf in Florida is at high risk. Tampa Bay has been dubbed the nation’s lightning capital.

  There are four ways lightning can injure: by striking directly, by striking an object that someone is in contact with, by using the human body as a pathway, and by ground current, also known as step voltage. In each case, injuries may result from the electrical discharge itself or from mechanical trauma—in other words, if the victim is “thrown” by a muscle contraction or suffers a fall. The shock wave from a lightning strike can hurl a person many feet. Those who are thrown on the ground or against a tree, boulder, or other hard obstacle may sustain contusions, internal organ damage, bleeding, fractures, or concussions.

  Lightning hits people indirectly much more often than it does directly. A person standing under or near a tree usually is injured or killed by an indirect strike, sometimes referred to as splashing or a side flash. Someone in an enclosure, such as a cave or crevice, or under an overhanging rock, or in a chimney on a rock wall, might be at greater risk: If lightning strikes in the vicinity, the charge can travel on the ground or rock—especially when it’s wet—and streak within the enclosed space. Because rock is solid and therefore highly resistant to penetration and the flow of current, lightning shoots across its surface. A person in contact with that surface draws the whipping electrical charge because the human body is far less resistant than the rock.

  Some lightning injuries and deaths occur indoors. Lightning can enter homes and buildings directly, through externally exposed wires or pipes, or through the ground. Once inside, electrical, telephone, plumbing, and radio/television systems, and any metal wires or bars in the walls or floor, can conduct the charge. If these things aren’t grounded—that is, able to conduct the charge into earth, where it dissipates—the lightning may jump through the air as it seeks a better or different path. A person nearby could become the new conductor. Lightning has claimed the lives of people who were washing dishes, taking a shower or bath, talking on the phone, or standing near an appliance.

  Critical to any electrical shock, whether from lightning or a home outlet, is the degree to which it passes through or over a human body. A body’s condition can either enhance or minimize that passage. Dry, clean skin tends to resist electricity, while wet skin—say, from rain or sweat—offers little or no resistance and easily becomes a conductor. Even ten to fifty volts, which normally causes only a mild tingling, can generate a strong shock if you have damp, sweaty, salty hands. Increase the voltage to beyond 50 volts and touching a live wire will give you a good jolt—and possibly kill you if you’re immersed in water, such as a bathtub. A shock from 220-volt wiring, which is standard in American homes, can cause severe injury or even death. Shocks from industrial accidents (responsible for about eight hundred deaths a year in the United States) typically involve a range of twenty thousand up to sixty-three thousand volts.

  But that pales in comparison with one lightning bolt, which typically packs an electrical potential of fifteen million volts.

  PERHAPS SURPRISINGLY, only about 10 percent of those struck by lightning die. The most dangerous and potentially fatal injuries involve the cardiovascular and neurological systems. The only cause of immediate death from lightning is cardiac arrest or the complications thereof, partly because electrical energy tends to travel through the least resistant parts of the body, especially blood vessels, which lead to the heart. Normally, only immediate and effective cardiovascular pulmonary resuscitation, followed as soon as possible by emergency medical treatment, can save cardiac-arrest victim
s or help them counter the serious consequences of cerebral hypoxia, a lack of oxygen in the brain. If lightning victims’ hearts don’t stop, the chances that they will die from any other cause directly attributable to the lightning injury are low—but only if medical care is readily available.

  Fortunately for lightning victims, most strikes aren’t fatal. Despite the enormous voltage, the current passes over the surface of their body, a process called external flashover. Minimal current enters it. Additionally, the extremely short duration of a lightning shock, measured in milliseconds, results in a very brief flow of current internally or externally. The result: little, if any, skin breakdown. Burns or tissue destruction may be insignificant.

  Even though lightning injuries may not be lethal, however, they can be severely traumatic and damaging to the victim and also very stressful for the family. Because such injuries are primarily neurological, they may entail sleep disturbances, memory and attention deficits, dizziness, chronic fatigue, irritability, depression, severe headaches, anxiety attacks, acute pain syndromes, peripheral nerve damage, and fear of storms. A person’s “software” gets scrambled. Some victims develop an intense pain syndrome from injury to the nervous system, a condition that is almost impossible to cure. These symptoms may make it impossible for the victim to hold a job, which poses dire financial consequences for the family.

  When lightning strikes near the head, it can enter orifices such as the eyes, ears, and mouth. That may explain the myriad eye and ear maladies related to lightning injury. If lightning does flow internally, it can short-circuit the body’s electrical systems, leading to temporary tinnitus, blindness, confusion, amnesia, cardiac arrhythmias, and vascular instability. Other indirect consequences may include severe brain damage and seizures caused by hypoxia during cardiac arrest.

  Some people have been zapped by lightning more than once. Roy “Dooms” Sullivan, a former ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, holds the somewhat dubious record. Between 1942 and 1977, he allegedly survived seven lightning strikes—at a campsite, while fishing, in his front yard, backyard, in a fire tower, inside a ranger station, and while driving a Jeep. Sullivan committed suicide in 1983 because someone he loved rejected him.

  Far behind this record holder are several people who have been struck “only” three times.

  ALTHOUGH LIGHTNING and mountains go hand in hand, the numbers of deaths in mountainous national parks have been surprisingly few. (Data on lightning injuries in the parks are largely unavailable.) Still, even under routine circumstances by park standards, lightning has brought grief to a number of individuals and families.

  Most visitors to Yellowstone National Park are aware of the frequent thunderstorms there. Yet lightning deaths since Yellowstone opened in 1872 have totaled only five. One occurred on Yellowstone Lake beneath a blue sky when a bolt from a cloud hidden behind a mountain ridge struck a boater directly in his head. The other four were a canoeist on Lewis Lake, a sheep-herder standing next to a lake, a hiker on a mountain ridge who fell two hundred feet after he was struck, and a twenty-one-year-old man who had left his broken-down truck and taken refuge under a large tree during a rainstorm.

  Sharing a border with Yellowstone is Grand Teton National Park, with mountain peaks towering above thirteen thousand feet that entice hikers and climbers. Grand Teton, designated a park in 1929, has recorded fatalities since 1950. Lightning has caused just one death there. (Another one occurred just outside the parks boundary on 11,101-foot Table Mountain.) The fatality happened in July 2003 among a party of thirteen climbers. Nearing Grand Teton summit, the climbers began a hasty retreat when a thunderstorm erupted. Six reached a ledge called Friction Pitch, and one, a twenty-five-year-old mother of two tots, settled down alongside a large puddle of water. Suddenly a buzz filled the air; then a colossal lightning bolt lashed the mountain. A climber on the ledge was toppled and plummeted fifty feet before a safety rope arrested his fall; he dangled out in space upside down. Seated next to the woman at puddle’s edge was her husband. The lightning knocked him momentarily unconscious. When he awoke, his wife wasn’t breathing, her lips and throat were black, and her clothing was shredded. The puddle was gone; lightning had completely vaporized it. Despite intensive CPR, the woman couldn’t be revived. In all, seven hikers suffered injuries, five seriously. The clouds parted about three hours later, and two private companies carried out a dangerous two-helicopter rescue operation. In gust-ing winds one helo picked up the dead and injured one by one from Friction Pitch and whisked them down to a second helo holding at Lower Saddle, where they were flown to the meadows below and then transported to a hospital.*

  Rocky Mountain National Park, with its high mountains, numerous trails above ten thousand feet, and frequent thunderstorms, has been the scene often lightning deaths. The park boasts the nation’s highest continuous paved road—Trail Ridge Road— much of which is above the tree line. The road crosses the Continental Divide at Milner Pass at 12,183 feet. All but two of the fatalities happened above eleven thousand feet, including three alongside Trail Ridge Road. Another three involved climbers on or near mountain peaks. The two exceptions were a motorcyclist and a hiker, both of whom got stuck at about seventy-five hundred feet in elevation.

  You might think that lightning is a killer on 14,494-foot Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park. In fact, there have been only two deaths. The first occurred in 1904 when eight federal fish commissioners were researching golden trout in the region. A thunderstorm broke out, and all but one in the group sought shelter under a rock shelf near the summit. A direct lightning strike killed the exposed man standing on the rock; two of his companions were knocked unconscious but survived. The second fatality happened on a July afternoon in 1990 when a thunderstorm battered the summit. All thirteen people there felt the ground zinging; their hair stood on end. They took shelter in the Smithsonian Hut located on the summit, a historic structure with rock walls, a cement floor, and a corrugated iron roof. While inside, the hikers heard the rock walls and concrete humming, followed by several booms and a bright flash. Then, according to eyewitnesses, a white and yellow ball of lightning one foot in diameter bounced off each of the four walls before exploding in a loud crack. One person was knocked unconscious, another suffered third-degree burns, and the rest incurred minor burns and numbness. The unconscious victim, a twenty-six-year-old man, stopped breathing and had no heartbeat; intensive CPR by those in the hut failed to revive him. A helicopter evacuated him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

  His family and three people who were injured filed suit against the National Park Service, contending it should have posted a warning about the danger of occupying the hut in a storm. The court upheld their claim.*

  Sequoia National Park was the site of another lightning fatality. It took place on Moro Rock, a 6,725-foot granite dome that juts out from the forested surroundings like a giant thumb. Much as on Half Dome, a quarter-mile trail follows Moro Rocks contour and leads hikers up a 325-foot elevation gain to the summit, which offers a sweeping view of the Great Western Divide to the east. Some sections of the human-made, five-foot-wide trail are concrete, and large granite slabs have been placed elsewhere as steps. An iron railing traces the outer side of the trail, while a rock wall borders the other side.

  On August 20, 1975, about twenty-five people—half of them children between seven and fifteen years old—were on the Moro Rock summit trail. The day was clear—only three cottony cumulus clouds occupied the distant sky. But the clouds consolidated, enlarged, and started moving swiftly toward Moro Rock. Soon a sea of black loomed over the dome. It started to sprinkle. Several hikers felt electricity in the air; hands tingled and hair bristled. The sprinkles morphed into a deluge of rain, then a barrage of hail, prompting most of the hikers to retreat hastily to their cars.

  One party halfway up the trail included Lawrence Brady and his wife, mother, and two sons (ages seven and nine), along with the wife’s brother and mother. To escape the driving hai
l, they hugged the rock wall while heading back down. Brady’s shoulder was leaning against the granite when a ferocious lightning bolt struck, illuminating Moro Rock in a spectacular flash. Electrical charges streaked about the dome, blasting stone into fragments wherever the trail’s iron pipe touched it and sending rock splinters and dust into the air.

  Brady exclaimed, “My God, we’ve been hit by lightning!”

  His wife checked first on their two screaming sons, then him. By then, the thirty-one-year-old man was lying facedown on his mother-in-law’s lap, unconscious. The electrical charge must have struck his shoulder before it shot across his body, giving him just enough time to utter something. When his wife turned him over, she saw his pupils beginning to dilate and his tongue in a gag reflex. She hit him hard in the chest a couple of times, then cleared his airway and mouth with her fingers and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A trained nurse arrived to help with CPR After several more minutes, two park officials appeared and took charge. They administered oxygen.

  Meanwhile, two other rangers came racing up the trail to check on another victim, Edward Schieler, a thirty-eight-year-old man who had been struck directly in the head while snapping photos on the summit. The lightning whizzed down his entire body, shredded all his clothes, exposed even his genitals, and blew off his left hiking boot. Only the cuff of his pants clung to the shod foot. The blast threw him beyond the railing, where his convulsing body teetered near the edge, about to topple over to certain death. Fortunately, his uninjured cousin was able to lift him back. He and another man grasped Schieler’s arms and legs and began carting him down the trail. When the two rangers met them, the victim’s eyes were slightly dilated, his pulse was weak and fast, and his coloration slightly bluish. He was incoherent and his body shook violently, but he was still breathing. Blood oozed from his ear and nose, and burn wounds and cuts covered his entire front side. A hole the size of a quarter perforated the bottom of his left foot. On the stretcher, he twisted and turned. His arms lashed out reflexively, and at one point he grabbed the railing. He vomited twice, which forced the rangers to stop and turn him on his side so he wouldn’t choke. They doubted he would survive.