No one thinks about being struck by lightning, and there is a reason for that. It’s very rare, but not as rare as you might think.
There is a little technobabble involved, but Dr. Brown in Back to the Future is technically right that getting struck by lightning means about 1.21 gigawatts coursing through your body.
According to the National Weather Service, an estimated 243 Americans were struck by lightning between 2009 and 2018.
Not a lot of people, but surprisingly common compared to other rare events.
In the United States, the lifetime odds of being struck by lightning are only 1 in 15,300. In any given year, those odds increase to about 1 in 1.2 million.
Interestingly enough, most people survive.
If you are struck by lightning the chance of it being fatal is only 1 in 10, a 90% survival rate.
Arizona is a lightning strike hotspot compared to elsewhere.
It is one of eight states with over 16 lightning strike fatalities between 2006 and 2021.
Arizona had 17, while Florida topped the list at 79.
Lightning strike deaths are also rare in Arizona, the chances of dying from a lightning strike during this 15-year period is about 1 in 394,000. Most Americans, 1 in 6, will die from heart disease.
A bad fall will take 1 in 101 of us.
A fatal dog attack accounts for about 1 in 69,000 deaths.
While dying from a lightning strike is rare compared to other death odds listed by the Centers for Disease Control is rare, the chances are better than being dealt a royal flush in poker (1 in 649,500).
It would happen more often than winning the Arizona lottery, with odds of about 1 in 7 million.
The odds of having a perfect March Madness bracket are calculated at 1 in 1.6 billion.
Finally, the rarest of all. The chances of you being born, and you being you are 1 in 5.5 trillion.
