Lets see, dangling in a metal chair by a metal wire suspended above everything else I say her probability of a bug zapper was 87.349 percent. I used windage and quantitaive methods for the calcualtion.

Give her credit for having a huge set of cajones to jump off of that thing. Something I doubt any of us would do.

If you read the article, you would have noticed that someone DID GET STRUCK by lightning on the Jersey Shore that SAME DAY. Statistics in random acts are pretty much useless.

Kind of hard to tuck & roll when you're dropping straight down. Glad the young woman is ok. I wouldn't have thought twice about jumping.....Geronimo!!!!!

If I were sitting in a metal cage in a thunderstorm I might consider it too, especially if I knew a person was struck the same day. That took guts to listen to herself, and it all worked out.

What she needs is class on basic electrical circuits. The moment she touched the ground her chances of being struck went from zero to some number greater than zero. For the future, if your not in contact with the ground or an object that is in contact with the ground then your chance of being struck is zero, for example look up at wire and note that the birds aren't being cooked.

Well the thing about it, even though she jumped from the lift. She still had the same amount of chance to be struck by lighting on the ground.

Metal does not attract lighting all it does is become a conductor of the electricity. So a Bolt of lighting could have hit the lift and hit everyone touching it or a bolt could have missed it, but hit her on the ground.

Future candidate for the Darwin award.

Yes you are.

@culheath, assuming there is actually lightning close by, those statistics you mention go out the window when you are sitting in what amounts to a lightning rod, which is higher than most other objects around.

Having worked in the aerial tramway industry for nearly ten years I have a little insight in the issues discussed. There is less chance of getting hit on the tramway than on the ground. The towers do have you at an elevated height but there are lightning rods and grounding cables attached to them to direct the improbable lightning strike to ground. Becasue the human body is not providing a ground path while in the chairs there is little probablility that the body would be electrocuted.

However, there is a greater danger of damage to the jumper and to the rest of the passengers on the tramways and the tramway system. By jumping she obviously exposed herself to injury as a result of the fall and landing. When a passenger jumps, the sudden loss of weight from the chair has the potential to derail the cable and several chairs further compounding the issue. Since aerial tramways are required to have a backup power source, her actions are borne of fear and ignorance. It usually takes less than a minute to get the backup power going.

Thank you Ckneeley for explaining that while you are suspended you cannot create "the path to ground".

Even if the chair was stuck by lightning she would have been perfectly safe as it would have followed the cable to the nearest post and the people standing on the gorund nearby would have been in the most danger.

17.. and a dumba$$... omg how stupid.

The fact is that it would be safer on the lift than standing on the ground. Lightening is trying to reach the ground; if it struck the lift, it would merely conduct through the metal safely to the ground, and not through the people. Sort of like being a bird on a electrical wire.

The person who was struck and killing was walking along the beach on the ground. Hence, this girl certainly wasn't safer jumping down to the ground.

@ the thinker-318752

Very good post! You are absolutely correct, especially about derailing the other chairs.

This was a stupid act on her part. Just one more YouTube idiot.

Nothing can erase logic and rational thought faster then the mindless, whipped up, frenzied drama that can be generated between 2 teenage girls. (Well that is unless there are more of them).

@ ckneely, You are a possibly braindead. Of course there has never ever been an airplane struck by lightning in the air, right? And speaking of birds being cooked, guess you missed the one about a bald eagle, huh? If your occupation is an electrician, please stay the hell away from my home and property.

Give her credit for having a huge set of cajones to jump off of that thing

I agree spellchecker as I would have looked down and just prayed.

Seriously, why does it not say in the article that she was at NO risk of being electrocuted because she was NOT grounded. That is a very dangerous lie of omission. What a horribly written, ill-conceived article. It looks like this was "staff written" meaning someone should have caught this. What a bunch of ignoramuses.

I work with electricity as well. She stood a far better chance of not being hurt even if lightning struck by staying in the lift chair than on the ground. The tramway is grounded and if any lightning was to strike, it would go directly to ground. The trams on the wire are insulated from ground.

Unfortunately this girl didn't know basic electricity and took a very high risk of injuring herself due to gravitational pull, which cannot be defeated unaided. She went from zero risk to super high risk, ah well, at least she wasn't damaged too badly.

Oh and people, aircraft get struck by lightning quite often. Aircraft systems are made to tolerate and pass lightning like a conductor. You are safe in that regard.

trust2112, aircraft have a different situation as unlike the ride, they are no where near the ground and have no protective grounding nearby such as that provided by the cables and poles of the ride in question. Since the lift itself is grounded, it makes this situation different.

Aircraft get struck by lightning because metal aircraft conduct electricity better than the air it's flying through. That is as opposed to this ride the girl was on, where the chair and cables would conduct electricity better than she would. But you should note that while aircraft do get struck by lightning, the occupants of the plane do not get electrocuted for the same reason that this girl would likely been perfectly fine staying in the chair.

trust2112

@ ckneely, You are a possibly braindead. Of course there has never ever been an airplane struck by lightning in the air, right? And speaking of birds being cooked, guess you missed the one about a bald eagle, huh? If your occupation is an electrician, please stay the hell away from my home and property.

A: Lightning regularly strikes airplanes. In fact, as far
as anyone knows, the odds are that each airliner in the USA will be hit by
lightning once a year. (Obviously some would be hit more than once, some not at
all.)

But, lightning has not caused an airliner crash in the USA
or of a U.S. airline plane anywhere in more than 40 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/2003-05-06-lightning-airplanes_x.htm

I bet if you are touching a metal surface that leads to ground, you will be cooked no matter how high you are. The ride would need to be completely insulated by non-conductive material in order to keep you from
getting shocked or electrocuted. If the ride is not insulated from ground you are not safe. Many people are misrepresenting what the conditions need to be to be safe from electrocution. The only reason a bird would be safe on a wire is if it is insulated from ground. A simple clothes line does not insulate you if the posts are metal. The posts would need to be wood or plastic to have some protection. The girl was correct to jump if the ride is not insulated in some way.

If you have read the messages this far you now know why we should put all our tax dollars into public education.

Their are some scary people out there.

Good Luck!!

tough call... Ordinarily one is safer in a metal container like a car because if lightning strikes the car it travels over the surface until it jumps to the ground. Suspended in a ski lift, lightning would find the steel cables and make its way to the support towers which are grounded. That said, it might also find a path through your body. Once on the ground would definitely distance myself from the towers... also lone trees on a golf course. So overall this is a good question, who was safer, the girl who jumped or her friend who stayed put?

Lightning rods or not she still could have been electrocuted unless the trams ran on poly or rubber wheels and connection points where insulated(rubber or poly bushings). Even with the proper rollers and bushings she still could have been effected but would not have been the main conductor. You need to understand that if her body is touching 2 points of metal say her butt and hand on the tram and the ride gets hit the electricity can still pass through her. We are not talking about regular household or building current we are talking about electricity that can pass through someone and jump many feet to a ground. I have seen my friend get hit and I also caught abit of it also. With him it went through the plumbing on a house we were working at. The house got hit and the juice jumped about 2 to 3 feet from the end of a pipe straight into his chest and then out his lower leg. He spent quite some time in the hospital and still is not right some 20 years later. Had he not been wearing the proper footware he would have been dead and even though he was they were still surprised he lived.

Good grief - people in the 1800s knew more about electricity

STAY IN THE CHAIR!!!

You are basically sitting in a Faraday Cage and you will be safe!

@James-440477 you could not be more wrong. Direct Current does not travel through a conduit, but rather on the outside of it. It is this phenomenon that protects you when sitting in a car during a lightning storm, not the tires, as erroneously believed by many people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_Cage

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/lightning8.htm

http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/~kskeldon/PubSci/exhibits/E3/

I do agree with Steve above about the Faraday Cage providing safety, but I don't think that a chair lift forms enough of a barrier.

Stupid, irrational teen. I'll bet the person riding in the chair lift next to her is asking themselves what kind of freak she's next too. It ended well because they were only 35 feet of the ground. what would have happened if they were a little higher?

I used to work at a chairlift during the summer "skyride" in Arizona on a 11,500 foot mountain during monsoon season. We would get lightning storms all the time with people on the lift. I will tell you with firsthand knowledge and 100% certainty:

Although a lightning storm during a lift ride is very scary and must be avoided at all costs, the most you will get as a passenger sitting in a chair is splash lightning, which will leave you with slight burns at the most. But, this can be very scary as the lift actually conducts its own lightning during a storm, and you will see artificial archs going from the towers to the cable leading up to the lightning striking the lift.

If lightning were to strike--which happens all the time--it would pass through the wire, to the tower and to the ground much like a bird on a wire. If you are unlucky enough to be sitting on a chair that is close to the strike, the lightning will not directly go through you, but will splash you, leaving light burns. A much bigger concern for operators is that when lightning strikes, it will blow out safety features related to the derailment sensors, and the evacuation will have to be conducted without these safety features, but the chances of the lift derailing are very low. But, we always worried about the possibility that lightning will strike a tree near the lift that will cause the tree fall onto the lift, derailing the lift while the safety features are out. We would plan to watch the liftline with binoculars if the sensors ever went out, which it never did after the dozens of lift evacuations I have conducted. Better be safe than sorry. Most lifts have a diesel engine backup in case the power goes out. And yes, those guys should have been watching the liftline with binocs.

If you really want to see a dangerous thing about chairlifts, google "chairlift rollback video."

Until you can teach lightning to read the textbooks and follow the statistics I am staying off of high metal objects in storms!

A Faraday Cage is also made to direct STATIC ELCTRICITY not a lightning bolt. They are two totally different things. If the bolt hit close enough to her she could have become part of the conduit.

I do think I may have been wrong with my upper statement after thing about it as she would still need to be grounded some how. No different then grabbing the positive cable on a circuit as long as you are not grounded you will be fine. I sill do not trust lightning through and would do what ever possible to get away from it. Having caught the static end of it a few times, trust me it sucks. Melted the metal rivets in my baseball cap to my head and I was standing on a roof. Problem was I was soaking wet. I also watched it melt the aluminum screens on my porch, light up like a Coleman lantern and started the porch on fire. That strike was a couple feet from the covered porch we were sitting in.

I too would stay on the lift, but your chances are still not 0 of being hit up there. I doubt that the grounding of a ski lift is designed to handle the thousands of amps put out by lightning.

Mr. Anderson: keep in mind that lightning travels across miles of air, which is one of the best insulators there is. If you're outdoors in a lightning storm, a little more insulation will not save you. Electrical equipment in a substation and in a power plant is all connected to a ground grid, so that if there is a fault, it has a path to ground. However, the fault current they are anticipating would be much less than a lightning strike.

I'm surprised the operator even had the cable cars runnig with an electrical storm nearby let alone high winds. Anything to make a buck, huh? Heck, football games are called of or stop play when a thunder head gets to 5 miles out of the field here in Austin!

Of course, she was only 17 and probably did not have first hand knowledge (classes) in the physics of electrical storms. She probably would have been safer staying in the life then touching ground!

Okay, call Mythbusters and have them tackle this one. They still doing their show?

Am I the only one who noticed the fact that she says she doesn't blame the ride operators?

Very rare in our current climate of "sue everyone".

I hope some sleazy lawyer doesn't get her to change her mind.

I once was afraid of being hit by a train, so I shot myself in the head. I think she made the right choice.

She was fine just a bruised ankle. There was a EMT there and he checked her out

Read the article, she was checked out by her Dr and he confirmed she wasn't hurt badly.

"wasn't hurt badly" tells me nothing, other than she lived.

Not familiar with HIPAA, are you?

She is a minor, journalists are very limited in what they can say.

So pretty much, you would rather die your saying. Getting struck by lightening is pretty much a guaranteed death. I'll take a broken leg or arm over getting struck. Broken bones heal. You can't heal from death.

Iz her friend ded?

Geez, besides the spelling, you weren't there and you aren't her. She is fine and that is the point. Why criticize?

Why criticize?

Cuz it's funn

what are you? 6, maybe 7? learn to SPELL!

Well, she is okay, so I guess she was fairly smart. She landed on her side instead of feet, so she didn't break anything. She survived the day and there wasn't a 100% chance of injury or death. Not sure what I would have done, but since I wasn't there I can't say.

Her friend is completely uninjured so she is the smart one. Only slight injuries from a 35' jump is lucky - not smart.

Oh please don't tell me that their still around. I was hoping if I ignored them they would simply go away.

Its a Jersey thing

You would think so right? I doubt she would have been affected at all even IF the chairlift got hit by lightning.

Yes, these are all grounded. It's one of those pesky 'safety regulations' that the republicans hate so much!

That is just utter nonsence analyst. How about, it is a good idea because we don't want our guests and expensive equipment to get hurt if (more likely when) this giant metal contraption, usually high on the side of a mountain, is hit by lighting. That just sounds like good business and/or common sense to me, why does it need to be "regulated?" Only a fool would build such a thing and not ground it.

here we go again.... dragging politics into this....

she didnt break any bones

was there more injury info in the video? i can't watch it right now.

HATR, can you actually read? Try reading the whole article, word for word this time. He Dr confirmed she wasn't hurt badly, i.e., no broken bones, concussions, etc.

It would seem Hatr-Hurter fell on his head more than once.

She said that meaning that she would RATHER have broken a leg or arm than gotten struck by lightning. She didn't break anything.

Crappy, Problem is she is falling straight down so it is hard to do a full para landing fall. She was right to fall the way she did as she spread the impact out over a larger area(less psi impact) Plus I think it also said she was over sand which also helps

Ya, you're right, I re-read it. But I doubt their deliberations resembled a NASA tech conference, as far as assessing risks and probable outcomes

But Doug, they weren't launching something into space, so their deliberations didn't have to resemble anything. They are both okay, and that was the point. Apparently her reasoning wasn't so bad since she was only slightly hurt.

Well, she's just lucky one o' them sand alligators didn't get her

Ohh goodness sakes, it is people like you that are the reason you have to sign some five page waiver that no one has time to read every time you do so much as go snorkeling or rent a bicycle. You honeslty think the company should tell every one of the hundreds of people who ride their lifts every single day what would happen if the power went out? Seriously? I mean certainly the operators need a plan, but they don't need to tell everyone about it on the remote chance it will happen.

They need not go into details. All they should do is to tell the people that they have a plan. A notice like this should suffice.

IN CASE OF POWER OUTAGE WE WILL GET YOU OUT MANUALLY EVEN WITHOUT POWER.
PLEASE STAY SEATED UNLESS ASKED TO JUMP

:)

Thanks, whynot, that was funny and worth signing in just to give your comment a nod.

You should have jumped off the roof.

Yes, news stories make people brilliant and heroic. I would have .....she is stupid...if I'd been there.....

Well, none of you were and the girls are okay. She landed correctly and she did make it through, so perhaps that was the thing to do for her and all worked out. How about we just be glad she is okay and think about how lucky they were that no one there got struck. Someone did get struck that day and she may have been thinking of that...who knows? But unless you were there you don't know what you would have done, all those who are calling her names and sharing what brilliant things you would have done.

Finally! Someone on here who has a brain!

I agree.

You are assuming that she knew about the lightning strike death... Why would she know that?

But she did see the fast approaching storm. High winds have toppled rides in the past.

Yes, some are just certain they could have done better. But they weren't there and this girl is okay, so why criticize?

Wet pants conduct electricity too. lol

The girl is low iq with no serious critical thinking ability

As opposed to someone wetting their pants too scared to jump.

the point is that there was no reason to jump

So I guess you know her and you can therefore state this with certainty? Or maybe you would have been amazing and saved everyone? Seriously...she is okay, so why be nasty and call her names?

She is okay despite doing something senseless and dangerous. That's all. I was just pointing it out.

You are right! For her it did happen to be the right choice in that moment. Who knows what would have happened? Lots of Monday morning quarterbacks on today.

It was A choice, not necessarily the right choice. If she had broken her neck and been killed, or a paraplegic for life (certainly possible in even a 5-foot fall, let alone 35-foot), it would have appeared to be the unwise choice.

I would not volunteer to sit in a chair lift during a thunderstorm, but I also would not abandon it. The lightning current would be conducted down the towers into the ground. The gusting winds would present more danger than the lightning.