I was unfortuneate enough to be witness, and lucky enough not to be included in, a lightning strike that invlolved 9 people. It was when I was a child, during an adult supervised feild trip to a local park. A sudden storm came up, with obvious lightlning. The adult who was in charge of our group had us 'hide from the lightning' in a ditch. I refused and sat next to a boulder about 10 feet away from them. I got soaked, but when the lightning actually struck, it struck a metal foot path over the ditch. Everyone who was in that wet ditch was effected. Being 11, I could not drag the kids or teacher out by myself, and had no concept of CPR. It took a few minutes for the other group to get to us and most of the people went to the hospital, but I was able to help keep heads above the raising water until I was able to colapse into a teacher's arms.

It was a crap shoot, but it taught me never to hide in ditches.

Rena