- #Safest place to be in lightning storm how to#
- #Safest place to be in lightning storm cracked#
- #Safest place to be in lightning storm full#
- #Safest place to be in lightning storm crack#
After getting them to safety, he made the mistake of going back up the wall to retrieve his gear. He was guiding two of his kids and a nephew when the storm moved in.
#Safest place to be in lightning storm crack#
This was Phil Broscovak’s experience after surviving a lightning strike on Edward’s Crack (5.7) in Vedauwoo, Wyoming, on August 13, 2005. While only 10% of people who encounter lightning are killed, some 70 percent of survivors have lifelong debilitating injuries. By August 17, 2021, two years after his injury, he’d sent both of the boulders that had nearly cost him his life.Ĭarrying voltages in excess of 10 million volts and temperatures reportedly as high as 53,540 degrees fahrenheit (that’s not a typo), lightning bolts confer a rather traumatic experience upon those unfortunate people with whom they interact-which is why Nikolov’s full(ish) recovery is an anomaly.
#Safest place to be in lightning storm full#
I couldn’t lift my arm for about three and a half months.” But aside from the scarring and tissue loss, much of which is permanent, Nikolov was eventually able to make an effectively full recovery. “I was back to being an infant,” Nikolov told climbing filmmaker Cameron Meier in a video interview in 2020. The lightning had killed some 50% of the tissue in his deltoid, so doctors had to cut much of it away. Nikolov was in the hospital for nearly a month and underwent multiple surgeries.
#Safest place to be in lightning storm cracked#
The blood came from facial wounds, an injured eardrum, and my jawbone, which had cracked when my head hit the ground.” It exited through my left big toe, missing my heart by inches and burning 30 percent of my body.
They told him he’d been struck by lightning.Īs he related to Corey Buhay in an excellent Backpacker article, Nikolov later learned that the lightning had struck his backpack’s aluminum frame and “entered my body through my left shoulder. A pair of hikers were running toward him up the trail. He saw rain sizzling as it fell onto his smoking pants. He could feel blood oozing down his face. The next thing he knew, he was lying in the trail unable to move his left arm or leg. Realizing he didn’t have time to let the storm blow through and also climb, Nikolov cut his losses and began hiking back toward the parking lot.Īfter about ten minutes, a light rain began to fall. But today was different he had to get home early that evening so he could prepare to celebrate his mother’s 61st birthday. Normally, he’d have just taken shelter under a boulder or some trees to wait out the storm before hiking deeper into the canyon to try one of his projects- Doppelgänger Poltergeist (V13) or Wheel of Chaos (V13). At that point, he saw another storm cell churning toward him over Hallet’s Peak to the west. Two steep miles later, he reached Lake Haiyaha, the lowest section of Chaos Canyon, where the stubby spruce treeline gives way to rocky alpine tundra.
When the sky cleared 15 minutes later, he loaded some gear into his aluminum-framed pack and set off alone toward the boulders.
Knowing weather is fickle in the mountains, Nikolov waited in his car. The forecast said 20 percent chance of rain, low for those monsoonal August afternoons, but Nikolov, a seasoned alpine boulderer, wasn’t particularly surprised to find it thundering when he arrived at the parking lot at 1:30 p.m. On the afternoon of Saturday, August 17, 2019, a Colorado climber named Minko Nikolov went up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a short afternoon bouldering session.
#Safest place to be in lightning storm how to#
How to give first aid to a lightning victim.Common lightning storm scenarios for climbers.It happened to him-it can happen to you.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
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