Julpost Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 13yo dd spent the night at a friends house Friday night and they camped out at a spot they've been clearing out and making into a camping area since last year. It's about 50-100 yards from the house and you can't see the house from it. They did have a radio so they could communicate w/his parents. The friends father is their Scout leader and has a very "boys need to be boys" perspective and sometimes I'm not 100% comfortable w/his judgement calls. Anyway, around 2 am, we had a huge thunderstorm. The boys hunkered down in the tent. My best friend was telling me that that was the worst thing they could do, that they should have made a run for the house. I can see that the tent offered no protection, whatsoever, but is running out into the storm any better? I guess we need to do a unit on thunderstorm safety! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurie4b Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 Running out in the storm into the house means that you are no worse off running then when you are in the tent and once you get to the house, you are much better off. So the better choice would have been to get into the house. If you google lightening deaths, you'll see that playing sports outside and camping are big chunks of the lightening deaths. (I googled it last year after ds's baseball coach kept them practicing with thunder and lightening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ria Posted April 27, 2009 Share Posted April 27, 2009 Another vote for the house. Sad story: a friend of my dd was struck by lightning last summer. She had just arrived home from college and was trying to unload her car before the storm hit. Lightning struck a tree and jumped to her, flowed through her, to the car, and then to the ground. She died instantly. Her dad did CPR. When the paramedics arrived they were able to revive her. Because she was without oxygen for so long she's now non-verbal, cannot walk, has a feeding tube, etc. She'll never recover. She's just turned 20. Ria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julpost Posted April 27, 2009 Author Share Posted April 27, 2009 I talked to ds today about it, he's going to do a research paper on thunderstorm safety. I learned quite a bit! It's a scary thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 Part of it depends on the location. Is their camping spot in the open, in a stand of trees, or next to just one or two trees? If their tent is the tallest thing around, or next to the only tall thing around? That's not very safe. In a stand of trees, with lots of tall targets that aren't their tent, is safer. Of course, if it's going to lightning and rain, and there's solid shelter 100 yds. away, common sense dictates going into the house BEFORE it becomes a question of whether running for it is safer than hunkering down, but I realize you're dealing with teenage boys. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unicorn. Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 They were safer in the tent as long as they didn't touch anything metal, ie: tent poles. Running for the house presents a taller, open target, and would have been a very dangerous thing to do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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