Lightning strikes, kills Little Leaguer

http://news.aol.com/article/virginia-boy-lightning/515002?icid=main

How incredibly sad. Feel terrible for the father, who probably wishes he had been more assertive in ordering his boy off the field.

 

Wow. That is sad.

I can only imagine what is going through that father's mind.

 

That is sad.

 

We had a lightning warning system installed at the ballfields in our town. But only AFTER a kid was struck and killed in the next town, which is usually how it happens.

 

Just heartbreaking. Hate reading those stories.

 

I was watching my kids lacrosse game the other night, a 7pm game. The forecast was for thunderstorms. The rules call for the game to stop after the first sign of lightning or thunder, and them wait 20 minutes. The games are 25 minutes halves. It was cold and the storm clouds were visable. About 10 minutes into the second half the ref blew the whistle for the game to stop, she said she heard thunder. Every parent and coach said, almost in unison, "I Didn't Hear A Thing". The game proceeded, uninterupted.

Btw, the kids play with metal sticks on artificial turf.

 

Lightning detectors are unreliable. A cell phone in the stands will set one off. That said, seeing a flash and counting the seconds is the tried-and-true method.

 

That this happens in 2009 blows my mind. Never mind Super Doppler and all that shit, but when I was covering summer league ball eons ago, games were postponed at the first rumble of thunder. You've never seen people move as fast as when that rumble occurred. I swear those parks were empty of everyone in five minutes.

 

ya think? : ??? ??? :

geez, how incredibly senseless. how could the kids keep playing effin' catch?! lightning is an automatic "everyone off the field" sitch in every supervised activity in these parts, thank goodness.

 

What's more human than ignoring small but real risks because "it won't happen to me?" I feel bad.

 

When my mom was little, she was swinging on the tire swing at her grandmas house, while her grandma was putting clothes on the clothesline. They could see a storm, but it was still a good 40 miles away. The sky above them was peaceful.

With no warning at all, lightning struck the spot on the ground, directly below where the tire hangs at rest. My mom just happened to be at the highest point of the backwards swing. She said her grandma yanked her off the swing and had her inside before she really knew what happened.

So growing up, Mom instilled the fear of lightning in me. I don't play around when it comes to lightning.

 

Yeah, that works well when there's multiple strikes in the area at once. Then you don't know which bang goes with which strike.

I hate to be crass, but you know, shit happens. And life can be cruel at times. There's no way to prevent bad things from happening, even to good people.

I feel for the family, but please let's not have a knee jerk reaction to this.