Most lightning victims are male, as shown in Figures 37 and 38, and Tables 32 and 33 . The results use the Storm Data categories in the digital database of male, female, both, or unknown.
Similar definitions apply to injuries and casualties.
Since the unknown portions are large, and assuming no gender bias for unreported cases, results are shown with and without unknowns. Including unknowns Including unknown cases, deaths by gender is shown in Figure 37. Males are the most frequent lightning victims, but the unknown category is larger than the female group. Figure 37 is shown for deaths because the percentage of cases with no gender reported was much less for deaths than injuries. By region, when unknown cases are included, more than half of all deaths and injuries involved one or more males, except for injuries in the west coast, Midwest, and northeast.