The temperature of the air around a bolt of lightning is
about 54,000 Fahrenheit (30,000 Celsius),
which is six times hotter than the surface of the sun, yet many times
people survive a bolt of lightning. American park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit
by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977. In cloud-to-ground lightning,
its energy seeks the shortest route to Earth, which could be through a person's
shoulder, down the side of the body through the leg to the ground. As long as the lightning does not
pass across the heart or spinal column, the victim usually does not die. (The
Handy Science Answer Book, compiled by the Science and Technology department of
the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh)
