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In August 1999, Jerry LeDoux of Sulphur, Louisiana, was standing in a puddle of water when he was struck by lightning. All he remember is that he was overcome by an "intensely bright light" and when he woke up a half-hour later, 20 feet away, with a vague taste of battery acid in his mouth, he said the soles of his shoes had melted, his two-way radio had exploded, and several of his teeth had shattered. The medical ID tag he wore around his neck was melted into his chest.

According to a report in Slate, LaDoux drove home from work that afternoon and was back on the job the next day. "I didn't even know I was hurt. I didn't realize anything was wrong," says LeDoux. It took several weeks before he realized just how "fried" his circuits were and almost six months to find a doctor who believed he'd been struck. His frustration mirrors the emotions of others who have survived a lightning strike, many of whom say they have trouble convincing friends and family even doctors that they've been struck. Part of the problem is that strikes are rare and symptoms are obscure. Only a handful of doctors worldwide are experts in post-electrocution syndrome, known as keraunopathology, and even these doctors just aren't sure exactly how lightning affects the human nervous system.

"Unlike garden-variety electrical shock," says reporter Joshua Foer, "which finds the quickest route directly through the body, lightning can flash over the outside of a victim, sometimes blowing off clothes without leaving so much as a mark on the skin. The high-voltage electricity that zips through the body does its damage in just a few milliseconds. In many cases, there are no visible burns, though temporary fernlike bruises called Lichtenberg figures sometimes appear. Medical tests like MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays usually come back normal. But those are anatomical tests of how the body looks, not functional tests of how it works, and they can be deceiving. Zap a computer with an electrical surge and its hardware will appear unchanged, but that doesn't mean it'll still be able to run Leisure Suit Larry. The same is true of humans."

Steve Shultz, Managing Editor
Founder and Owner

Aimee Herd, Editor