JACKSONVILLE (KYTX) - A warning about the danger of lightning after a strike near four East Texans sent them to the hospital.
The lighting struck the parking lot at Fred Douglass Elementary School in Jacksonville, affecting three teachers and a young child. The four patients are doing just fine. They were treated and released with minor injuries Thursday. Doctors say they're lucky. Injuries from lighting can range from minor shock to death.
With more storms on the way through East Texas, experts are warning you to be very careful if you're outside during a storm.
Emergency Room Physician D. Thomas Curtis has treated many patients affected by lightning, and Thursday, he added four more to that list.
"Three were in a car that had a near strike with lightning and one was another patient who was outside with an umbrella raised, barefoot and did actually get some lightning strike and had a sensation of electrical shock," Curtis says.
The Jacksonville ISD Superintendent says the lightning struck a puddle in the parking lot, and electricity was conducted through the water. That's why the teacher standing barefoot in the water, holding a metal umbrella -- felt a strong electrical shock.
Injuries from lightning can be minor, but more often, they're severe.
"You can receive electrical burns, that are actually thermal burns that can burn through the body, and cause major tissue damage. You can sustain arrhythmia where your heart actually stops beating because of the electrical shock and those would be potentially life threatening," Curtis says.
With rain and storms expected to continue on a Friday, it's football coaches and trainers who are making sure their fans and students are safe from the lightning and they do that with a device called a Thunderbolt. It's a small device that tracks how far away the lighting is, and if there's any danger they tell everyone to get inside.
Grace Community High School Head Football Coach Mike Maddox says, "It will determine if the lightning is 5-8 miles away or if it's 3-5 miles away of if it's 1-3 miles."
When lightning is 3-5 miles away, coaches blow their whistles and send everyone inside.
"You just can't take chances.," Maddox says. "We can replay a ball game. There are plenty of ball games in life but we can't take chances with peoples' health and peoples' lives."
At those football games, when lightning gets close enough, the game is put on hold for 30 minutes. In that time if lightning strikes again, they have to wait another 30 minutes.
If you are outside at a place like a football field when there is lightning, experts say you should not take cover under bleachers. They are metal and that is very dangerous.
You want to go inside a building, or if you can't get inside, the next safest place is your car where it's insulated.
Experts also say you don't want to be under what experts call an "anntenae," meaning a tall tree in a flat field, or a single tractor in a pasture. If you are near the only tall object around, you are more likely to become a target for a lightning strike.
