An (Incomplete) History of Lightning Safety
Mary Ann Cooper, MD
Director, African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network
Professor Emerita, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago
macooper@uic.edu
Abstract—This paper expands a paper one the US lightning
safety campaign and includes the names and publications of some
of the most influential contributors to lightning safety worldwide
prior to 2000.
Index Terms— Lightning safety, lightning injury prevention,
lightning detection, lightning injury, safety campaign, injury
prevention.
I. INTRODUCTION
There have surely been deaths from lightning for as long as
humans have been alive. However, prior to 1970, there is little
record of significant lightning safety and injury prevention
efforts. This short paper will broaden and add to a paper
detailing the US lightning safety campaign that was presented
at the ILCP conference in Vienna in 2012 and endeavors to
involve before
credit as many people, studies, and groups involved
2000 that it is possible to fit in [1].. ‘Lessons learned’ details
ful to countries threatened by lightning in
ideas that may be helpful
developing a lightning safety program.
II. HISTORY
The modern history of lightning safety begins with Dr.
Nobu Kitagawa. (Fig. 1). On August 1, 1967, 46 members of
Matumoto Fukashi High School by lightning as they were
hiking in the Japanese Alps. Eleven were killed and 14 were
seriously injured [2]. Following this tragic accident, Dr
Kitagawa organized a research group of physicists, high
voltage engineers, and physicians, some of whom had cared
for the victims. Among other things, they simultaneously
investigated simulated lightning discharges on the human
body in the high voltage lab, set up animal models of injury,
investigated incidents involving humans and animals including
the meteorological conditions, injuries, medical care,
autopsies, damage to clothing, trees and surroundings at strike
sites for a total of 73 individual incidents. Their research
contributions, reported over decades, are incalculable [2-15].
They went the final step and developed one of the first
international lightning safety codes that served as an early
guide to lightning safety education and injury prevention [6,7].
Dr Kitagawa, now retired and in his 90’s, has been a mentor
and advisor to lightning researchers around the world. In
2003, he received the first Kitagawa International Medal of
Keraunomedicine.
As important as the medical aspects is to lightning safety
is the knowledge of where and when lightning strikes.
Lightning Location and Protection, Inc. was incorporated in
1976 by Philip Krider and Martin Uman based on their
research, measurement and theory on the electric and magnetic
fields generated by lightning. This technology was the basis
for the US National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN)
which began providing uniform national information to
researchers and operational users at the start of 1989 and is
now used by many other countries as well [16].
Despite the work of Kitagawa’s team, there was little
published in the English medical literature about lightning
injuries prior to 1980. Cooper had begun her work in
electrical injuries in the late 1970’s as a resident in emergency
medicine. On reviewing the lightning literature she found only
isolated case reports and older general reviews which she
collected into her 1980 paper, the first organized medical
study of lightning injuries and fatalities [17].
Some of the first papers available on lightning safety were
published by people from mining and electrical utilities in the
1980’s [18
[18-20].
20]. Unfortunately, collaboration between physics,
engineering, medical and others interested in lightning safety
was seriously hampered because their literatures were isolated
and not as easily
sily available from indexing services as they are
today.
In 1990, international lightning safety recommendations
were first proposed at the 20th International Conference on
Lightning Protection (ICLP) [6,7]. Six years later, some of the
authors of the 1990 recommendations joined others at the 23rd
ICLP to amend and reissue the recommendations [21].
Research meteorologists Ron Holle and Raúl Lopez began
using localized lightning sensor data in Florida for
meteorological purposes in the early 1980’s but did not
become
Fig. 1. Nobu Kitagawa with the Kitagawa International Medal of
Keraunomedicine at ICOLSE 2003
involved in lightning safety until they investigated a case of
two people killed on a beach in Florida using lightning data
from the Kennedy Space Center. They expected to see
thousands of flashes but found only two which led them to
begin studying the circumstances of lightning injury [22].
Michael Cherington, another physician, published his first
paper on lightning injury in 1990 which caught the attention of
Ron Holle and Raúl Lopez. They began collaborating and
founded the Lightning Data Center in February 1992. The LDC
members worked together publish a paper that became the
basis for the commonly accepted 1:10 ratio of deaths to injuries
[23].
The circle widened in 1991 when Holle and Cooper met in
Chicago when Mr Holle was attending the retirement party of
Ted Fujita. A long and fruitful collaboration began [24]. At
about the same time, Chris Andrews, another physician,
contacted Cooper about a book he proposed to edit with David
Mackerras and Mat Darveniza that was an outgrowth of the
PhD work he was doing in electrical engineering at the
University of Queensland [25]. Dr Andrews has been
instrumental in lightning safety and research in Australia.
The international support group for survivors, the Lightning
Strike and Electric Shock Survivors International, Inc., held
their first meeting in North Carolina in 1991 [26].
In 1996, Brian Bennett, an athletic trainer, found that few
college athletic programs considered lightning to be a risk
worth addressing. He and Katie Walsh Flanagan worked with
the National College Athletic Association to publish guidelines
for coaches about delay or cancellation of practices and games
]. These guidelines, updated regularly, serve as an
[27-29].
‘authoritative’ paper that parents are urged to use with their
local volunteer
olunteer and school coaches and are available at
www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov.
www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov
In 1997, a meeting in Chamonix, catalyzed by a fatal
lightning incident in the Alps, was the first time that a
substantial number of experts from medicine, engineering and
physics and from many countries had an opportunity to meet
and interact [21].
William Roeder, a meteorologist at the Kennedy Space
Center became involved in public lightning safety education in
1998 when the Lightning Safety Group (LSG) met at the
American Meteorological Society meeting in Phoenix,
Arizona, and has been a prolific safety researcher and slogan
maker for the US Lightning Safety Week committee [30-38].
In 2004, Chandima Gomes, originally from Sri Lanka and
now in Kuala Lumpur at the University of Putra, began giving
lightning injury prevention lectures to groups throughout Asia
and has started lightning safety efforts in multiple countries on
three continents, including this WOMEL conference [39-42].
Since 2000, many more people have become involved in
lightning safety around the world. Some have done the first
injury surveys in their countries or other single studies. Some
have continued in their work but many have not perhaps
because they lack the support, knowledge, energy or free time
to pursue work that is largely unreimbursed.
A. Lightning Safety Group Recommendations
The Lightning Safety Group (LSG) was an ad hoc meeting
of US lightning experts from industry, academics, medicine,
physics, athletics, insurance, meteorology, and research who
met at the AMS meeting in 1998. They realized that many old
and untested lightning myths were often at odds for teaching
safety [32,43,44]. New research on inter-strike distances and a
desire to be consistent with messages, especially to the media,
prompted them to write a consensus statement on lightning
risk, safety and injury prevention [45]. Recognized experts in
lightning from around the world were asked for input prior to
publication.
The statement included safety for individuals, for small
groups with short evacuation time and for large groups with
longer evacuation times such as sports stadia or rock concert
venues [46-48]. They also recommended lightning safety
action plans, the ‘30-30 rule’ and teaching about safe and
unsafe areas. The Lightning Safety Guidelines (LSG) were
published as widely as possible in the journals of the
participants.. Position statements incorporating LSG were
developed by the National Athletic Trainers Association and
the American Meteorological Society [49,50].
B. A Model Program and Resource for Lightning Safety
The first national Lightning Safety Awareness Week
(LSW) was held in the US in June 2001. Many of the LSG
writers were invited to participate in conference calls planning
the week, writing and designing LSW
website
LS
(www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov), and contributing to LSW
information packets for reginal government weather offices.
The first LSW
LS campaign was launched with a national press
conference at a Professional
Professional Golf Association tournament with
a professional golfer as the celebrity spokesperson, high
government officials from the weather service, and a physician.
Over the next 15 years, the death rate from lightning in the US
plummeted to less than 1 in 10million population in large part
to media stories and documentaries on lightning as well as the
work of broadcast and government meteorologists. Over the
years, LSW committee members have made themselves
available for hundreds of lectures to various groups and
interviews from newspapers, radio, and television stations all
over the world, for podcasts and nearly any other work the
media has proposed.
The LSW
website
(www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov)
remains the best and most complete website on lightning safety
in existence with links to all pertinent websites. It is checked
and updated several times per year. Best of all, all of the
materials on the LSW website is available for free download
including curricula and games for preschool-grade 12, safety
toolkits for large venues such as stadia, beaches, and concerts,
medical aspects, ongoing data collection of US lightning
deaths, a media section, useful statistics, animations of
lightning physics and mechanisms of injury, posters of
celebrity spokespersons and Leon the Lightning Safety Lion,
and many other materials that can be useful for lightning safety
campaigns in other countries. Many of the website developers
have volunteered to help customize materials to include faces,
languages and situations that are appropriate for other
countries.
C. Development of Lightning Safety Education, Slogans and
Materials [40,47]
The LSG recommendation of the ‘30-30 rule’ was taught
for many years because it was an easy to remember rule used to
teach when to seek safe shelter (30 second count between the
first lightning seen and the first thunder heard) and when it was
safe to resume activity (30 minutes after the last thunder heard
or lightning seen). Over the last five years, this has been
largely abandoned, except for certain applications, in favor of a
much simpler message, ‘When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors’
which is simple enough for even a three or four year old child
to remember when thunderstorms arise.
Most of the materials developed for the LSW on the NOAA
lightning safety site apply to developed countries and are aimed
at getting or keeping people inside safe areas such as
substantial buildings (with plumbing and wiring running
through the walls) and all metal vehicles. Unfortunately, 90%
of sub-Saharan housing and that in many other tropical and
sub-tropical, high lightning density areas are built from mudbrick, thatch, sheet metal and other insubstantial, non-lightning
safe construction. The challenge will be to develop lightning
safety messages and programs that are appropriate to these
areas, speak in the area languages, address cultural beliefs, and
are effective.
[36,37,51]
,51]
1]]
III. LESSONS LEARNED [36,37,5
A. Gather the Myths and Cultural Beliefs of the Community
hat Need to be Addressed [32]
2
2]
that
In most
st communities affected by lightning, there are many
cultural beliefs, even ‘superstitions’ about lightning. Many of
these, such as covering mirrors, are not harmful [52].
[5
However, others that affect personal and community safety
need to be addressed by safety education but may be part of
long held beliefs. Some of these include the belief that metal
attracts lightning (it does not), that wearing shoes with rubber
soles provides adequate protection (it will not), and that
lightning can be called down by witches or deflected by
‘rainmakers’. Novel ways to address or work around these
beliefs without impugning the person’s intelligence, ancestral
beliefs or religion may need to be developed.
B. Talk to the Parents and Children
Lightning safety educators found that giving warnings to
adults about lightning safety had little impact, partially because
adults have a tendency to feel invulnerable and not at risk or
because they are busy earning a living and cannot interrupt
their activity to travel long distances to safer areas when
thunderstorms threaten.
LSW learned to change focus to
working with parents and their children. Parents are much
more likely to change their behavior and that of their children
when they fear that harm will befall them. Efforts aimed
directly at children are also very effective as they take the
safety message home to their families [39].
C. Use Proactive, rather than Reactive Messages
Recommending that people check the weather report
before beginning an activity is a great step, provided they
have access to accurate weather forecasts.
Admitting that ‘Lightning Safety is not Convenient’ and
that people may need to change their behavior to increase
their safety is essential. It sets the stage for a new way of
approaching the problem of lightning safety.
Giving people a long list of ‘Do Not Do This, or Do Not
Stand There’ types of instructions is not as helpful as telling
them what they should DO, preferably with short, succinct
messages that they can remember in times of crisis.
Encouraging people to form a ‘lightning safety plan’ for
their work area or before an event or family/ church gathering
is much more effective than leaving them to react to a
thunderstorm when it is upon them. Their lightning safety
plan should include safer areas to go to and the time to get
themselves and anyone they are responsible for to that area.
For larger venues, work situations, or large sports events, the
US has developed tool kits to develop lightning safety plans
[48]. These may or may not apply to developing countries.
An Example: When parents in the US complained that
their children’s coaches were resistant to stopping games for
lightning, they were given or referred to the NCAA coach
guidelines [29].
[2 ]. Parents could present their children’s
coaches with a print out before the season started and
comment that, ‘If professional coaches (who rely on practices
and games won to keep their jobs) are worried about
lightning,
lightning, we as parents and coaches should be worried about
our children’s safety as well.’ Now most volunteer and
professional coaches and referees in the US have become the
biggest proponents of lightning safety on the playing field.
D. Use Different Messages and Methods of Messaging for
Different Audiences [39]
[39]
39
In urban areas, the message may be to seek shelter in the
substantial buildings that are available. In rural areas, other
messages are more appropriate and need to be developed and
tested for the developing countries.
In high literacy areas, videos, podcasts, lectures, and school
programs are often appropriate. In areas with lower literacy,
street plays, dramas, folk songs, storytelling, and posters and
billboards that show the recommended behavior may be more
appropriate. Cell phone messages or texts may also be useful
[53].
Example: Even 3 and 4 year olds can be taught lightning
safety by having them role play while others simulate the
sounds of rain and then thunder. As soon as they hear the
‘thunder’, they stop their activity and run into their play house.
E. Form Multidisciplinary Groups When Possible
Addressing lightning safety takes more than one person
working on it. A ‘critical mass’ of workers is important for
each person to feel supported, plus an alliance usually produces
more results in a shorter period. Recruiting a network of
people with different skills and knowledge can improve the
quality and tone of the messages and address the questions that
arise more effectively. Certainly, everyone at this meeting
knows the impact of having an ‘outside expert’.
F. Never Underestimate the Power of the Media
The media have an essential role in spreading the message
and even in collecting data on injuries, if properly employed.
The media discovered that lightning stories were very popular
with the public, and, over the last three decades, lightning
experts in the US have freely given their time for thousands of
interviews to newspaper, radio and television reporters all over
the world as well as participating in dozens of documentaries
for the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and other
networks.
Not only is lightning a beautiful natural
phenomenon with interesting science to explain it, but stories
involving safety messages appeal to people because of the
death and disability it can cause, the drama of survivors
working to get better, and the education provided about how to
avoid injury.
The media often call lightning experts to explain what
happened with a recent lightning injury to someone in their
own hometown. They are always encouraged to include
lightning safety messages and made to feel that they will save
lives with their story. There is no question that the active role
of the media in promoting lightning safety has had a huge
effect in spreading lightning safety information and has
undoubtedly prevented many injuries and deaths in the US.
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
IV. SUMMARY
While lightning injuries in many developed countries
around the world have decreased remarkably, the challenge of
ng deaths, injuries and property damage from lightning
decreasing
in developing countries, especially those in the tropical and
subtropical areas remains a huge job. This paper gives the
history of lightning injury prevention and safety before about
2000, some of the lessons learned and tips for putting together
a national lightning safety team.
[11]
[12]
[13]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Lightning Safety must be a group effort involving those with
knowledge and energy. I would like to thank all of those in the
world-wide lightning community who have been so patient and
supportive and taught me so much in the last twenty-five years.
Any errors or omissions of those working in lightning safety
before 2000 are entirely my fault, for which I apologize. I
would be happy to amend my knowledge as well as to share a
more complete list of papers with any individuals who request
it.
[14]
[15]
[16]
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