Lightning had already struck Roy Sullivan, a ranger at Shenandoah National Park, four times. “On August 7, 1973, while he was out on patrol in the park, Sullivan saw a storm cloud forming and drove away quickly. But the cloud, he said later, seemed to be following him,” Wikipedia says. “When he finally thought he had outrun it, he decided it was safe to leave his truck.” “I actually saw the lightning shoot out of the cloud this time, and it was coming straight for me,” he said.
“The lightning moved down his left arm and left leg and knocked off his shoe,” Wikipedia says; Mental Floss adds that it knocked it off “leaving the lace tied.” His hair was on fire. “Still conscious, Sullivan crawled to his truck and poured the can of water, which he always kept there, over his head, which was on fire.” Lightning had set his hair on fire in 1969 and again in 1972, when he rushed to a restroom at work but “could not fit under the water tap and so used a wet towel instead,” and since then he had “carried a can of water with him in case his hair was set on fire.”
His wife was struck once too, “when a storm suddenly arrived as she was out hanging clothes in their back yard. Her husband was helping her at the time, but escaped unharmed” (Wikipedia). As The Campo Santo Quarterly Review puts it, “the lightning missed him and struck his wife instead.”
“Naturally, people avoid me,” he said. “I was walking with the chief ranger one day and lightning struck way off and he said ‘I’ll see you later, Roy.’” He said a restaurant wouldn’t let him in even on cloudy days: “There’s a restaurant on Loft Mountain that even it’s just overcast they won’t let me in.” Then he added: “I can’t blame them. Who wants to be near somebody that’s all the time getting hit by lightning?”
He could feel a strike coming. “Just before it strikes,” he said, “I smell a certain smell, like sulphur, and my hair bristles all over. That’s the signal.” After his seventh strike, in June 1977, while he was fishing, he “ran into a black bear on the way back to his car,” Mental Floss says, and by several retellings he drove it away from his trout with a tree branch.
Fact check
The facts and where they come from
- He tried to outrun a storm cloud in his truck, but he said it followed him. Wikipedia: “On August 7, 1973, while he was out on patrol in the park, Sullivan saw a storm cloud forming and drove away quickly. But the cloud, he said later, seemed to be following him.” Mental Floss: “Again, Sullivan was in a park truck, and saw storm clouds coming. All too aware of his track record, the ranger tried to outrun the lightning.” Damn Interesting: “Roy drove away, but as he would describe later, the storm seemed to be following him.” The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “he got in his car and floored it at the first sign of a forming storm cloud.” 1243
- His name was Roy Sullivan, the park ranger lightning hit seven times. Guinness World Records: “it happened to him a whopping seven times”; he was “working as a ranger at Shenandoah National Park.” 51
- When he thought he had escaped, he stopped and got out. Wikipedia: “When he finally thought he had outrun it, he decided it was safe to leave his truck. Soon after, he was struck by a lightning bolt.” Mental Floss: “Once he felt he was out of harm’s way, Sullivan stopped to have a look.” Damn Interesting: “When he felt he had finally driven far enough from the storm to be safe, he stepped out of his truck.” The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “Satisfied that he’d outrun it, he got out of his car to watch the storm and was struck.” 1243
- He said, “I actually saw the lightning shoot out of the cloud this time, and it was coming straight for me” (Mental Floss). Wikipedia: “Sullivan stated that he actually saw the bolt that hit him.” 21
- It knocked off his shoe, with the lace still tied. Mental Floss: “It even knocked off one of his shoes, leaving the lace tied.” Wikipedia: “The lightning moved down his left arm and left leg and knocked off his shoe.” IrishCentral: “knocking off his shoe.” 216
- His hair was on fire. Guinness World Records: “his hair was set on fire again when he was struck in August 1973.” IrishCentral: “douse over his hair which was on fire.” 561
- He crawled to his truck and poured his can of water over his head. Wikipedia: “Still conscious, Sullivan crawled to his truck and poured the can of water, which he always kept there, over his head, which was on fire.” IrishCentral: “Sullivan crawled back into his truck to retrieve a can of water to douse over his hair which was on fire.” 16
- He kept it there in case his hair caught fire again. Wikipedia: after the fourth strike, in 1972, he “carried a can of water with him in case his hair was set on fire”; the 1969 and 1972 strikes had both set his hair on fire. 1
- Once, a storm caught him hanging laundry with his wife. Wikipedia: “Sullivan’s wife was also struck once, when a storm suddenly arrived as she was out hanging clothes in their back yard. Her husband was helping her at the time, but escaped unharmed.” Guinness World Records: “Roy’s wife was also struck by lightning once while hanging out the washing in their back yard. And although he was there helping her, he managed to escape it that time.” 15
- This time, it missed him and struck her. The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “the lightning missed him and struck his wife instead.” Damn Interesting: “the time his wife was struck by lightning while hanging the wash on a clothesline mere feet away from Roy.” 3415
- When lightning struck far off, his own chief ranger said, “I’ll see you later, Roy.” Sullivan, quoted by The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “Naturally, people avoid me. I was walking with the chief ranger one day and lightning struck way off and he said ‘I’ll see you later, Roy.’” Wikipedia: “I was walking with the Chief Ranger one day when lightning struck way off … The Chief said, ‘I’ll see you later.’” 31
- He said one restaurant wouldn’t let him in on cloudy days. Sullivan, quoted by The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “There’s a restaurant on Loft Mountain that even it’s just overcast they won’t let me in.” This rests on his own words in one source. 3
- But, he said, “I can’t blame them” (The Campo Santo Quarterly Review, right after the restaurant line). Wikipedia: “He was said to have been avoided by people during the later years of his life, owing to fears of being struck by lightning, and that saddened him.” 31
- “Who wants to be near somebody that’s all the time getting hit by lightning?” Sullivan, quoted by The Campo Santo Quarterly Review: “I can’t blame them. Who wants to be near somebody that’s all the time getting hit by lightning?” 3
Sources
- Roy Sullivan Wikipedia
- Meet the Man Who Was Struck by Lightning 7 Times (Stacy Conradt, August 6, 2015) Mental Floss
- Unbearable Lightning (Duncan Fyfe) The Campo Santo Quarterly Review
- The Conductor (Alan Bellows, July 12, 2013) Damn Interesting
- Incredible story of man who survived being struck by lightning SEVEN times (Vicki Newman, January 26, 2023) Guinness World Records
- Roy Sullivan: Struck by lightning seven times IrishCentral
Notes
The cloud “following” him is his own impression (Wikipedia: “seemed to be following him”), so we say “he said.”
1973, in or out of the truck: Guinness World Records says he was struck “while in his vehicle”; Wikipedia, Mental Floss, Damn Interesting and The Campo Santo Quarterly Review all say he had got out. This page follows the four, as Part 1’s notes did.
The quotes come from 1970s press interviews retold by Mental Floss and The Campo Santo Quarterly Review; they were checked on those pages, not in the original newspapers. The restaurant line has only The Campo Santo Quarterly Review as a source, so it is given as his claim.
His wife: no source says how badly she was hurt, so we say only that it struck her.
The bear: Part 1’s page left it out because it traces back to one book; it is told here only as the retellings tell it. Wikipedia and The Campo Santo Quarterly Review disagree on how many bears he had driven off, so no number is given.
Left out: Mental Floss’s claim that he retired five months after the 1976 strike, and, as on Part 1’s page, anything about his death. Guinness World Records’ wider record claims are on Part 1’s page.
Pictures: only the photo of Sullivan holding his lightning-burned ranger hat, posted by Shenandoah National Park, shows him; which strike burned the hat isn’t recorded. The other photos show the park, the era and lightning, not the events. The shelf cloud and the lightning photos are NOAA’s, from Oklahoma and Texas: lightning over a dirt road on the Great Plains and lightning in Oklahoma (both 2009, Sean Waugh), a wall cloud with lightning at Miami, Texas, in 1980, and cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground strokes. Skyline Drive at Range View Overlook, the Big Meadows ranger check-in station and the old entry station at Simmons Gap were photographed in 1996. The boots are a worn-out pair photographed by the US Marine Corps on May 23, 1970, not his; the clothesline is at a Farm Security Administration camp in Robstown, Texas, in January 1942, not his; the Rose River is in the park, photographed in 2024. Loft Mountain Wayside is the place he named, photographed on August 7, 2018.
Photo credits
The archive photos in this story
The photographs and illustrations in this story are in the public domain or shared under open licenses; each one is credited below with its license. Tap one to enlarge it, or follow the link to its Wikimedia Commons page for the full record. The narration, captions and graphics in the Short are our own; its music and sound effects are credited below.
Music and sound effects
Music: Schumann, Kinderszenen, Op. 15: No. 1 'Of Foreign Lands and Peoples (Musopen, public domain); Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition: IV. Bydlo (piano) (Musopen, public domain); Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 'From the New World': II. Largo (Musopen, public domain).
Sound effects: Freesound, CC0.
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