If you’ve ever found yourself running in a lightning storm, you may have wondered what you should do to stay safe. Crouch low in an open field? Duck under a shelter? Or keep running?
Know that there’s an average of 54 reported deaths due to lightning each year, and hundreds of people are permanently injured after becoming struck. Injured folks may suffer long-term symptoms like memory loss, attention deficits, stiff joints, irritability, fatigue, weakness, muscle spasms, depression, and more.
Getting struck directly by lightning—or other forms, like the ground current created by a strike—is something to take very seriously. The old recommendation of crouching down into a “lightning squat”—reducing oneself to the size of a child—has changed after not proving to provide much safety. We asked John Jensenius, Lightning Safety Specialist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, about how a runner can stay safe in a storm, and here’s what he had to say:
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