Why lightning can kill people?

Answer 1

Lightning kills by stopping the heart, which, after all, runs on electrical impulses. Surprisingly, the bolts which Cooper says last 0.1 to 1 millisecond, are too quick to burn most victims. Burns may happen if clothing ignites or sweat boils and steam is trapped under clothing. Also high voltage elctricity can kill a person.

Answer 2

How Lightning KillsThere are a couple of ways. The most common is that it disrupts the body's electrical signals and stops the heart and brain. The other is less commonly fatal but causes severe burn damage to the body. ANSWER:these severe injuries are not usually caused by thermal burns, since the current is too brief to greatly heat up tissues; instead, nerves and muscles may be directly damaged by the high voltage producing holes in their cell membranes, a process called electroporation.

In a direct strike, the electrical currents in the flash channel passes directly through the victim. The alternating stroke currents behave more like AC electricity, where the energy travels on the surface of the conductor and at the frequency typical of lightning, "everything becomes a conductor", therefore the energy may pass relatively benignly "around"the body, minimizing injury.

Metallic objects in contact with the skin may "concentrate" the lightning's energy, given it is a better natural conductor and the preferred pathway, resulting in more serious injuries, such as burns from the super heated metal. At least two cases have been reported where a strike victim wearing an iPod suffered more serious injuries as a result.

However, during a flash, the alternating stroke current flowing through the channel and around the body will generate large electromagnetic fields and EMPs, which may induce electrical transients (surges) within the nervous system or pacemaker of the heart, upsetting normal operations. This effect might explain the cases where cardiac arrest or seizures followed a lightning strike that produced no external injuries. It may also point to the victim not being directly struck at all, but being very close to the strike termination.

Another effect of lightning on bystanders is to their hearing. The resulting shock wave of thunder can damage the ears. Also, electrical interference to telephones or headphones may result in damaging acoustic noise.

Answer 3

Yes it can, the electricity that runs through your body can stop your heart. But, a lighting strike will not always cause death.
It isn't guaranteed to kill someone, although it's obviously something to avoid.

Roy Sullivan, a park warden from Virginia, USA, was struck 7 times and survived all of them.
Even though lightning pumps over 5 times the lethal limit of electricity through your body in a matter of seconds, 9 out of 10 people struck by lighning survive the lightning strike. That doesn't mean that I recommend testing out getting struck by lightning and that you can get hit 10 times before you die, it is the conditions of which where they were struck. In most situations, though, it is not fatal.

Answer 4

Lightning is a massive discharge of electricity. The massive electric discharge of tens of thousands of amperes and tens of millions of volts can cause major nerve and brain damage. Lighting can also cause deaths indirectly by starting fires.

Answer 5

Lighting can cause deaths directly through electrocution, or indirectly by starting fires and knocking down trees. On a few occasions lightning has set off explosives.

Answer 6

Take a guess. It's electricity.

What happens when you shock yourself? It hurts, correct? Well, imagine that, but 100 times more powerful.

Answer 7

Lightning is a powerful electrical current. It has the effect of burns, damage to tissues from heat, and disruption of the brain and heart from direct electrical stimulus.

Answer 8

Lightning can kill you but thunder cannot.