Popcorn Lightning

I was the program director at Lake Beauty when this next story happened. It was after dinner and we had planned, that evening, on playing a classic night game with the campers. It’s the kind of game filled with flashlights, screaming, running around in cabin groups, and lots of fresh Minnesota night air. But the small chance of rain turned into something more ominous.

Just as we were about to end our evening chapel session I received word from one of my staff that a really nasty looking thunderstorm was forming off on the horizon. We would have to resort to plan b. We were ready for it. Quickly I put my staff into action. It would now be movie night. We sent the kids to their cabins to get their pillows. We told them it would be raining soon so they might want their raincoats in case it was still raining at the end of the movie. The kids were great. They got their stuff and made their way down to the gym. We had them wait out on the huge porch, protected from the rain. We could hear distant thunder so we knew we had to hurry. I was not the friend of lightning.

I had been zapped once as a kid. Lightning had struck and cracked our back patio when I was looking out the back window doing dishes. I was actually about 5-10 feet away from the bolt. I saw it in great detail and it surprised me. It looked like a jagged tube of light and it had scales, like a snake. One scale overlapped the other. I discovered the sound of thunder is very different when you are right next to it. First you hear what sounds like a very loud gun. There is no other sound. Then, a couple of seconds later comes the loudest booming sound in the universe. The jolt entered our home’s plumbing system through the highly conductive copper pipes. It zapped me so hard I flew backward flat on my back leaving me tingly and stunned. It would be my first electrifying lightning strike.

Back at camp, I was struggling with our large and quirky popcorn machine. I had repaired that piece of junk so many times I was the camp’s resident expert on its repair. I was popping corn like mad, trying to get ahead of the needs of 150 campers about to enter the gym for movie night.

Then, several things happened at the same time. First the director’s wife got on the phone to tell us that a horrible storm was descending on us. We had better get the campers into a safe place. Her home was on the western side of the same hill we were on. She could see what we could not. It was going to be bad. Second, while she was on the phone, she was given a very severe shock and even suffered burns to her ear, knocking her unconscious falling to the floor. Third, the cause was from a nasty bolt of lightning striking the camp flagpole, entering the camp water well and electrical system, blowing out anything that was turned on camp-wide. Fourth, that bolt entered the gym and blew out some lights and our beloved and very expensive video projector. Fifth, the lightning bolt arched from the popcorn machine to me. I was about 10-15 away from it at the time. It hit my right arm immediately rendering me unconscious.

I was revived by the camp nurse, Twila, shouting my name. I was very disoriented and didn’t remember a thing. Later I was told I was shaking or convulsing, however, I was not sure what to believe. My assistant program director, Ruel, tried telling me a lot of things I did that I do not believe.

They laid in the back of a van and stuck an oxygen mask on my face. Renee was already in the van. Off to the hospital in Little Falls we went. I don’t remember much of the trip. I remember being in the emergency room and getting a lot of attention. Surviving lighting strikes is rare so there were a lot of medical people with a lot of questions. They stuck two IV’s in me, one in each arm, and pumped me full of fluids. They were trying to flush out my kidneys, keeping them from being clogged by proteins released when the body receives a severe shock.

Against my will, they kept me overnight. “You need the rest,” is how they tricked me. You see, in reality I didn’t receive any rest. I had to get up to pee every 20 minutes. It was like clockwork. I would pee, they would replace one of my IV bags. I would pee, they would replace an IV bag. This happened all night. Soon, I was told that word of my accident was on the radio. I prayed it wasn’t Ruel they talked to for their information. Then, throughout the night, one-by-one, the entire hospital staff came into my room to see the guy who got struck by lightning. They each told the same jokes, like I had never heard them, or thought of them myself. Each time I politely laughed. “Wow, that must have been a shocking experience.” And, “I sure your experience was very enlightening.” Insert laughter here.

I went home the following morning once my pee had passed the protein test. Once back at camp, I learned I had missed one of the worst nights every experienced by any LBBC camper. It was, however, a story of creative heroics. Without the video projector, and with the lighst being blown and electricity out for a time, it made programatics very difficult. They quickly tried thinking of every skit they knew, and then performed it. They even brought out the puppets and made up shows on the spot. All this was done by the light of 150 flashlights pointed at the stage. As the flashlights dimmed, so did the energy and spirits of the campers. The storm raging outside was still too nasty to release the kids to their cabins. Maybe someone who was there can chime in here but this went on for more than two hours. They didn’t tell me until the next day because they knew I would feel bad. If you were there, leave us a good comment on your experience that night.

Rumors of my death, paralysis, vegetative state, coma, third degree burns, and conversion to Mormonism quickly made the rounds. The next day, everyone seemed very shocked to see me alive (get it? Shocked to see me. Oh goodness, that’s so funny). So there it is folks. There’s my camp lightning story. I’ve got a couple more for tomorrow. But I’ve got to stop typing ‘cuz I’m really zapped.