Astraphobia is a case of lightning fear that is most common in children and in many adults. These people are afraid of lightning for two main reasons:

The loud thunder

The chance of being hit

As we discussed there is nothing dangerous about thunder, actually it is an amazing process set in motion by the lightning.

Now, about the chances of being hit. The truth is, lightning can be pretty harmless if it strikes in the right part of the person (for more on that click here). This happens because humans are excellent conductors of electricity. I remember reading a short paragraph on a guy who had grabbed an electric wire in both his hands. The electricity ran down the first wire and then went through the man, without hurting him, and into the other wire. Humans are excellent conductors.

I have heard that you can even touch something electric (while grounded of course) and have a whole line of people holding hands and the electricity will travel through all the bodies and eventually shock the last person since he or she has no conductor to pass the electricity onto.

In this same way the lightning can strike a person and travel through their body and into the ground. If we weren’t good conductors we would die. So, the chances of being hit . . .

Lightning is attracted to metal (metal is an even greater conductor than ourselves) so that is why more people are hit when holding or around metal. And that is why it is never good to go out in a thunderstorm when close to metal. Anyway,  there are many stories of people being hit, some multiple times. One person survived because she was stroking her dog when the electricity traveled through her and into the dog; they both survived.

The other day I remarked that it would be cool to be struck by lightning, and survive of course . . . suffice it to say I got some pretty strange looks.

The only reason lightning will kill you is because most people die at (last I heard) 30-40 amps; an average lightning bolt can produce 30,000-100,000 amps. What an amazing body God has given us in order to be such great conductors of lethal forces.

Published by Jacob Howard

A writer and Christian, I thank God for letting me see the Salvation offered by His Son and I am eternally grateful for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!