"jbm" wrote in message ...

(*) To elaborate, it was the surveying instrument I was using at the time
that received the full force of the strike, and ended up as a molten lump
on the ground. I was close enough to have my hands burnt, and be knocked
about 20 feet across the ground by the force of the explosion. To show I
wasn't stupid enough to be outside in a thunder storm, I had got an
excavator to park next to me with it's dipper arm almost 20 feet up in the
air above me (a Hymac all metal machine including the tracks, so it should
have been earthed). And still the damned lightning found its way around it
and get to me. It must have been my natural magnetism, someone said
afterwards.

jim, Northampton



You were lucky the excavator didn't finish up as a molten lump, with you
underneath it. Still, something that relatively few have experienced, and
survived. I trust you had a speedy recovery with no long term effects.

Roger