Two people dead after Brecon Beacons lightning strikes
 

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Two people are dead, and two others are in hospital, following separate lightning strikes in the Brecon Beacons in Powys, Wales

Emergency services were called to areas around Pen y Fan in the national park at midday on Sunday.

Two individuals were airlifted to hospital in Merthyr Tydfil with what were described initially as life-threatening injuries.

Two others are also being treated - one at a specialist burns unit in Swansea.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-33401965




I am amazed that, looking at the forecast for that day, how anyone thought hillwalking was a good idea?

What are the chances of being struck by lightning in the UK?..

Thats a nightmare of mine - R.I.P :(

Worldwide there are around 16 million thunderstorms each year. They are most frequent in tropical rainforests where they can be almost daily occurrences. Here in the UK there is around a one in three million chance of being struck by lightning. Thats more likely than winning the lottery

Source

isn't it weird how shocked we are about people dying? we are all going to die. and it will mean nothing in the end. anyone that does care about you after you die, they are going to die too.

http://hd.wallpaperswide.com/thumbs/...y_pixar-t2.jpg

And what are the chances of being hit by a car?

On an exposed treeless hillside during a high intensity electrical storm the chances are very high indeed.

Hence the outcome

I heard they were using Selfie Sticks which attracted the lightening.

lightning

Thanx

Now people talk about the teenagers accidentally overdosing on Internet bought supplements being Darwinism... But THIS surely is the ultimate example of natural selection to its best effect.

Ot perhaps evidence of the divine.

Thor: "oh I see you're using a selfie stick? BAMMM have some lightning in your face, ****er!"

I could say that about people that accept heresay as fact and make nasty comments towards unfortunates...but I won't, because I'm nice.

:clap1:

A walker who was killed by a bolt of lightning during a thunderstorm on the Brecon Beacons may have been struck because he was carrying a selfie stick, it has been claimed.

Two men died and two were injured on the mountain range in Powys, Mid Wales, after separate lightning bolts in several parts of the park.

Sources close to the rescue said one of the dead men had been carrying a metal selfie stick, which may have attracted an electrical strike.

It emerged on Monday that one of the victims was leading children on a Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme. (unbelievable)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...fie-stick.html



but


Mountain rescue leaders have refuted claims that a hiker killed by lightning was carrying a selfie-stick.

The teams who climbed the Brecon Beacons to aid four walkers have ruled out that a camera-extension tool was to blame for the deaths.

Two people were killed and two others injured when walking on the highest mountain in the national park in the freak thunderstorm.

Mark Jones, deputy leader of the Brecon Mountain Rescue Team, said: ‘There is no evidence whatsoever that there was a selfie-stick at the scene.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/07/rescue...#ixzz3fCWjqdgw




What is worse is that an adult is leading children up a mountain with a set up like they had that day. It beggars belief.

unfortunately, its pretty easy to get hit by lighting in the right circumstances. I think I'm correct in saying that golfer Lee Trevino has been hit 2 or 3 times. If you are the highest point in an exposed landscape, look out

Yes.Walking around with lightning conductors above your head on a mountain in a thunder storm is not the brightest of ideas.I suppose they just thought it's one of those things that will 'never happen to them'.

If you're on top of a mountain holding a metal rod and there's lightning... It's guaranteed to happen.

Not that I don't feel bad for them and their families though. People kill themselves in all sorts of stupid ways, I guess. This is just a new one for the instagram generation.

No i dont think they had selfie sticks but they could have had walking poles, umbrellas, metal framed rucksacks. Irrespective of all metal objects they were still at a huge risk.

I hate to speak ill of the dead but standing at the top of a mountain holding a metal stick during a high intensity electricity storm does have a certain Darwinian feel to it.

note the ridiculous use of the word "freak" thunderstorm in the metro article

That might have been due to the rescuers suggesting they had never experienced this before.

That was a reference to the 2 dead and not the meteorological situation

Huw Jones, spokesman for Central Beacons Mountain Rescue, said: "Our prime concern was to get equipment and personnel up on the tops. So I left with the first party from here - taking medical equipment, a defibrillator just in case.
"And just as we were getting up onto the summit, a call came through that there was another casualty on one of the other summits."
He added: "Through the morning, the clouds built up. And off the back of the hot and humid weather that we've had over the last few days, the weather front moving through triggered off the thunder and the lightning.
"And of course, in a mountainous environment, if there's lightning around, the lightning is going to aim for the highest points."
'Very, very loud'
Mark Jones, another of the mountain rescue team members taking part in the exercise, said: "I've been in Brecon Mountain Rescue for 30 years and I've never known anything like this.
"It is exceptionally unusual, and for multiple people to be hit in multiple strikes on different peaks - it is very, very rare."
He continued: "It was very, very loud. We decided to end the exercise - and then the call came in about the lightning strikes."


It sounds to me like both.

His anecdotal experience is irrelevant and personal to him. The set up was not unusual, nor were the storms, what he may have been referring to was that there were so many people up on the peaks during a well advertised storm that just so happened to fall on a sunday.

It always shocks me how people get "caught out" when the weather forecast has been clear. It's like people who go hill walking and get caught in blizzards, risking the lives of their rescuers.