Date: 2006-12-16
To: Lightning
Miles today: 0.0

OK, so allow me to tell you about the experience I referred to in an earlier entry about lightning... We have an Outdoor Adventure Club at Sheboygan Falls High School and a couple of years ago we took a group of 5 students to the Great Smokie Mountain National Park to hike on the AT from Newfound Gap to Fontana Dam. It was our second night out. We were staying at Derrick Knob Shelter when a severe storm hit in the early evening. I've always loved watching a good storm roll in. The interesting thing was that it seemed to be coming from all directions. At any rate we were safe, or so we thought. One of our students "slipped" (without us knowing) out of the shelter to view the storm from underneath the eves of the shelter. When we realized that she wasn't inside the shelter Beth, my partner in crime, went out to get her back in. At just that moment lightning hit the roof (metal) of the shelter. In an instant I thought "COOL!". In the next instant Beth yelled to me that Sonya, our student, had collapsed! I ran out of the shelter and around the the corner to see Sonya lying, unconscious, in the rain. Approaching her I noticed that her eyes were rolled back, saliva coming from her mouth and the smell of singed hair.... I can't begin to describe the feeling I had at that moment. I thought we'd lost her. I checked for a pulse and beathing. She had a very rapid pulse and shallow breahing. It was still very stormy with lightning all around so we carried her into the shelter where she started coming around pretty quickly. She was very disoriented and affraid but settled down qutie soon. Within a half an hour she was even joking about it saying she was going to buy a lottery ticket when we returned. We tried to call the park service for help as we new this was a very serious situation. Our cell phones did not work real well up on mountain. in the meantime Sonya became nausious and lost her dinner. But finally we got a 911 operator and she patched us through to the park service. After several calls and talking with the park medic they deemed it necessary to send up a rescue team on horseback. I must add here there were a goup of 3 hikers at the shelter that really helped us out. It was one of their phones that finally worked. The rescue team (By the way they were terrific) had to come up 8 miles on very narrow, muddy trails. They could not get started before 2 am. They arrived at around 5:30 am through a shroud of fog. It was surreal. Long story short, they got Sonya out and to a hospital for an exam and overnighty observation. She was find save for some slight damage to her eardrum which resulted in very minimum hearing loss. Amazingly she stayed with us for the remainder of our trip which included a raft trip down the Nantahalla River (she didn't do the raft trip). A week later she ran in a two mile road race! Go figure!Here's what is really scarey. The lightning struck the roof of the shelter and passed down through Sonya. It entered her left clavical and exited her sterum, right hip and just below her left ear. It blew a hole the size of a half dollar through her hat.I'm sure I'll be thinking of Sonya as I pass by Derricks Knob Shelter this spring..