So last night I had the most intense experience ever.

[dg]

Before I start, this has nothing to do with drugs/alcohol/substances in general. Sorry, but that is for another time and place.

First off, fuck Nebraska weather. For the past two days, it's been 95-100 degrees outside with about 80-90% humidity. Disgusting. In any case, last night I was playing some pickup soccer at my school's field. Yeah it was hot, but no one really gave a shit. After about an hour clouds moved in and it started to pour. However good that it might have felt, it started to hail a tiny bit. So it's 11:30 at night when I'm driving home. As I was driving, there were some amazing lightning strikes lighting up the sky at a pretty constant rate. The sky was being lit up every 2 to 3 seconds! So I get off I-80 and head north on 48th to get home. I live pretty far into the country, so there's not a lot of cars out right now. There was a truck behind me and we were the only ones on the road. Now this highway has these massive metal poles that hold power lines about 60 feet tall. As I approach the top of the hill, I was no more than 40 feet away from pole. Suddenly, a couple of things happened at the same time:

-Lightning arced down from the sky and struck the pole.
-I saw the brightest flash and heard the loudest sound ever in my life.
-My left side of my head tingled, hair stuck out and my left arm went numb.
-My truck's lights and radio shut off immediately, while my engine died.

I veered off to the side of the road. The truck behind me pulled over and the driver ran over to me. I got out and he came over to me and asked if I was okay. I told him that I felt okay, but my car died. I tried to start it up and on the second time, it worked. I sped home, which was only about a minute away. I came in, told my parents what happened, and tried to calm down from the experience. As I reached into my pocket to grab my cell phone and iPod, I felt a fair amount of static. When I pulled them out, both were powered off. I said fuck it and went to sleep. Well, this morning, I finally turned on my cell phone to see that none of my contacts, calendar dates, pictures, or messages are there any more. It was basically wiped. My touch, which was in my right pocket, is fine.

So yeah, there it is. That was, without a fucking doubt in my mind, the single most intense experience of my life. I know that it probably has no effect what so ever reading this on a forum, but it sure opened my eyes to the power of nature.

[Con]

wow man, I'm glad you weren't hurt or anything. I didn't think the strikes had that much of an effect on surrounding electronics.

[Bad Waffle]

dude, nice. You know, people think lightning strikes dont happen to people that often, but man, it happens ALL THE TIME. My uncle just got hit like 3 days ago, and his socks were burned. You're lucky you didnt hit anything when you veered off.

[Hotrod]

I'm glad that you're ok, it must have been a very interesting experience. Do you think that you or your car got struck as well?

[dg]

I had no idea my the electronics were going to messed up either, but I honestly wasn't thinking about it at the time. It's just really strange that my phone was wiped and my iPod is fine.

Hotrod, I checked my car out this morning. Having a black truck, it makes it kind of difficult to see if there are any scorch marks. I did notice that my antenna was a little black at the top couple inches, but I don't know if that was from yesterday or just because I haven't washed my car in a while. It is possible that a tiny piece my have arced to my car, but I don't really know at this point. It was way too bright to see.

[Bastinka]

Pretty amazing, what kinda car were you driving?

[randreach454]

Be glad you were in the car when it happened, if for some reason you werent and were near that lightning like that, you could be in a bit worse condition right now..

[JunkfoodMan]

iPods.
LIGHTNING PROOF.

[Heathen]

I live in louisiana, and we get some pretty similar weather.

Once...me, my mom, and my stepdad were all chilling in the Living room while it was raining. I was eating a burrito and playing The Sims 2. All of a sudden, the loudest fucking thing I had ever heard happened. All the lights in the house died. All you hear in the house is "Aww...shit. I dropped my damn burrito." What had happened is a tree outside the window I was sitting next to (literally 4 feet away from me) got struck by lightening. It took a good 10 feet of tree off this thing. We found pieces of pine tree embedded a good food into the ground all across the block. (I dont know distance lingo that well, but about the distance from the doors to the game section at walmart) One of the telephone poles near my house was on fire.

[Syuusuke]

The closest I've been to lightning was 100 miles...