I was struck by lightning yesterday–and boy am I sore (2013)
I was struck by lightning yesterday—and boy am I sore

                      
                          
  Around Memorial Day weekend four years ago, Ars Technical Director Jason Marlin was simply minding his own business in a new home office, enjoying Carolina thunderstorms after recently moving to Asheville, North Carolina. He'll never forget what happened next. Since our pals at Mosaic recently dug deep into the aftermath of lightning strikes, we thought we'd share Jason's first-person account once more. This story from our archives first ran in May 2013. 

                      
          "Sir, look at me—did you have any shoes on?" asked the emergency medical tech. "Were you wearing shoes when you were struck?"
"Huh?" I wondered, a little dazed. "What's with the shoe obsession?"
Let me back up. My family and I moved from Chicago to Asheville, North Carolina last autumn, ostensibly to get closer to nature. Mostly, this has been great. We still have an urban center we can walk to, but the woodland behind my house hosts all manner of flora and fauna. We've traded rat-infested dumpsters for trash bins overturned by bears; instead of skyscrapers, we now have mountains. Unfortunately, mountains don't have lightning rods.
Yesterday, I was sitting in my studio office—basically a converted garage—while a thunderstorm brewed outside. After wrapping up a conference call with some of Ars' finest, I was getting ready to dive back into work when the storm really picked up. "Ahhhh," I thought as I leaned back in my chair to stare out at the strange greenish light against a purple-clouded backdrop. "So beautiful!"
At that moment—and this part is a little foggy—a bright arc of electricity shot through the window and directly into my chest. I'm not sure whether the arc originated from the sky or the ground, but it knocked me out of my chair. I hit the concrete floor and bounced back up to my feet, which were shuffling at top speed into a bookshelf. I remember thinking, "OK, going to die now. Do not fall down. Do not pass out."
I've read that being struck by lightning is akin to being hit by a huge defibrillator. I'm not sure about that—but it did feel magnitudes worse than the time I touched an electric fence as a kid.
I stumbled out of the studio and toward the house where my wife and children were staring out at me in horror. They had seen the flash and heard the tremendous crack that comes with a nearby lightning strike. My son Felix said the flash was so bright that he thought it had gone through the kitchen. As I staggered into the house looking like a wide-eyed psychopath, everyone knew something had happened. "I, I, I... think we need to call 911!" I stuttered.

          
                      
                  