This is Walter Summerford. This poor schmuck got struck by lightning four times, once after he was already dead.
It’s an old wives’ tale that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Lightning is completely random. In the US alone, there are an average of 40 million lightning strikes per year. The odds of being hit by lightning in America are about one in a million in a given year. However, those numbers are, curiously, not consistent around the globe.
In the UK, there are only around 300,000 lightning strikes per annum. The United Kingdom is markedly smaller than the US, but its weather is way crappier. As a result, the odds of getting struck over there are closer to 1-in-15,300.
Lightning is some seriously nasty stuff. It’s basically just a big honking spark. Electrostatic energy builds up in the atmosphere and can discharge either from cloud to cloud or from a cloud into the ground. A typical lightning bolt runs about 50,000 degrees F, or five times the temperature of the surface of the sun. They pack millions of joules of energy. That stuff is undeniably pretty to look upon. However, you really don’t want to get any of it on you.
Around the globe, there are roughly 6,000 lightning strikes each and every minute. Nearly a quarter million people are struck by lightning every year. Roughly ten percent of those are killed.
On a certain level, those seem like pretty decent odds. If only one in every million Americans gets struck by lightning every year and, of those, nine out of ten live to tell the tale, that doesn’t sound so bad.
Those are indeed reassuring numbers, unless you happen to be Walter Summerford. Walter Summerford has been described as the unluckiest man in the universe. He was struck by lightning four times. One of those strikes was actually after he was already dead.
Background
Walter Summerford served as a British officer in World War I. In 1918, Major Summerford was riding a horse through a Belgian field when he caught a bolt of lightning. This massive electrical shock rendered the poor man paralyzed from the waist down. However, he gradually recovered. With the war over and his recovery nearly complete, Summerford was demobilized and sent to Vancouver for further rehabilitation.
Six years later, in 1924, Summerford was enjoying a little quiet time out fishing by a river. A storm came up, so the man took refuge underneath a nearby tree. A bolt of lightning struck the tree and tracked down his body and into the ground. The strike left Summerford almost completely paralyzed on his right side.
After two long years, Summerford finally regained the use of his legs. The man was an inveterate outdoorsman and loved wandering about the wilderness hiking, hunting, and fishing. However, in 1930, whilst taking a stroll in a public park, he was struck by lightning a third time. This bolt rendered him completely paralyzed. It was also markedly worse than the previous two. Summerford was destined to spend the rest of his natural life in a hospital bed.
Summerford’s physicians were amazed the man had survived this third blow. He fought valiantly for another two years before finally succumbing to the cumulative effects of these three lightning strikes in 1932. As to whether he enjoyed some kind of unique body chemistry or had somehow offended his Maker, no one will ever know. Regardless, it was undoubtedly the cumulative effect of these three lightning strikes that ultimately did Walter Summerford in.
Four years after he was buried in a public cemetery in Vancouver, Canada, Walther Summerford’s gravestone was itself struck by lightning and split into pieces. I’m not much into conspiracy theories myself. However, it is tough not to believe that there was something supernatural and spooky going on with that unfortunate guy.
The truly curious bit was that Walther Summerford was struck every six years starting in 1918, just like clockwork. Even after he died, when his six years were up, that’s when lightning struck his tombstone. The cyclical nature of the thing strains credulity, but his tale is well-documented.
The brother of one of the soldiers with whom I served was actually struck three times. Once the poor guy was in the shower. I can only imagine what that might do to somebody’s emotional well-being, not to mention your perspective on general hygiene. My colleague was from rural Texas. He said that every time it got a little bit stormy out, his brother would retreat to the living room away from the television and read a book. Who can blame him?
Walter Summerford got struck by lightning once after he was already dead.
This is his shattered tombstone. Image: Public domain.
Ruminations
As kind of an amateur science guy myself, I always gravitated toward basic physics. I can get my head around the way things move. However, chemistry and electricity always kind of made me itch. I struggled to visualize these disciplines, so they held little fascination for me. However, I have long appreciated that electricity is best appreciated at a distance. If Walter Summerford has taught me anything, it is that I’d really sooner not get struck by lightning.
