More on the "bath blasts"

Ref: http://animalcare.my/2014/05/05/keep-yourself-and-your-pets-save-from-bath-blasts/

Following my post two days ago on my (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime experience of a bath blast, I wish to thank all friends and readers for their concern and assure them that I have not turned into a lightning conductor and yes, it is still safe to shake my hands…!

And no, I cannot light up a light bulb nor have I experienced any extraordinary superpowers such as being able to outrun a speeding tain or hear high frequency sounds or catch a speeding bullet.

It’s been a blast, folks!

Apart from blurred vision that night, I was back to ordinary-old-me the next morning.

But on a more serious note, I thought I should share the following explanations offered by my friends. These seem the most plausible. I have also pasted them onto the initial post since a few friends requested that I post my story on facebook and it has gone rather…viral now.

I wish to again, thank all friends and readers for their concern for my wellbeing. Your kindness is most appreciated. The fun-poking is equally appreciated. What is life without laughter! ‘Tis always good to see the lighter side of all things.

Here are the two most plausible explanations and useful advice:

Explanation 1:

You are very lucky to be alive. The lightning has struck your house. However, I think there are two poor conductors that have saved your life. One is the piping in your house. I think, they are made of plastic not steel. PVC are poor conductor of electric. Secondly, the water are treated water that contain less impurity. Again water is a bad conductor and that too have reduced the electric field. If the water is not treated, it would have contained impurities and that will transmit electric field to your body.

Count your blessings. You have a second chance to live on.

Next time avoid taking a shower during thunder storm.

Also, you may want to engage a contractor to install lightning conductor on your roof. This will bring the lightning charge directly into the earth without harming anyone or any equipment inside the house.

Oh, could the lightning have come through the copper pipes from the solar heater system? Then, the lightning would have carried more electricity – yikes! So yes, maybe it came through the PVC pipes, which reduced the amount of current tremendously.

Explanation 2:

It was the water that saved you. Lightning is caused by a very strong electrical voltage creating a discharge current through the shortest, most conductive path it can from the clouds to the earth. A continuous sheet of water is quite conductive. It is a common experience with wind turbines, which because of their height tend to get struck by lightning at least once a year, that they do include lightning conductors within each blade, but usually the blades are wet because it is raining and usually the electricity in the lightning runs down the surface of the blade, i.e. through the water layer on the surface, and the blade itself is untouched. In his case, the lightning went past you, not through you.

Another hypothesis (now, this, I like…!):

I’m surprised why your house kena coz your house is not the highest in the neighborhood kan? More logical if it strikes at the basketball post, the tall tree at the playground. Eh..if it strikes at the Stonehenge lagi mystical. See got alien in your vicinity or not?

You are very lucky coz kena strike by lightning yet bad thing never happen.

You got extra power or not ar?? Macam Spider-Man kena bitten by spider jadi Spider-Man.

Come to think of it, Timmy has been going to the playground at night, stalking… Maybe some cat-aliens have landed and have taken up residence in the tardis!!

Stranger things have happened, folks…Beware the invasion of cat-aliens from Planet Cat. Maybe they ride on lightning.

ZAPPP!!! They’re here!

Better start being kind to cats (and their minions, the dogs)! You have been warned.

P.S. On a serious note, to set the record straight, I doubt I was struck by lightning. Lightning merely went through my plumbing and came out through the showerhead I was holding onto. The showerhead is insulated by a plastic covering. And based on the explanations above, the piping and treated water created a large resistance (due to their being poor conductors of electricity and V = IR), thereby reducing the current that came through the showerhead and water, resulting in just a jolt which I experienced. I could have been electrocuted, though, but I was not. Phew!

Suddenly, I’ve understood more physics than in all my years of schooling, so can I make a living as a physics teacher now?

Another explanation on 10th May:

Your body has much higher resistance than your surroundings in this instance. I guess there is also a shower frame / waterpipe which is made of metal. The lightning would choose the least resistance path (likely through the water pipe) to earth. There is so much charge in the lightning bolt that anything metallic near where the lightning strike will have induced a huge current / charge (and again, your friend could have felt the heat, but the heat probably quickly dissipated through the water). The force you experienced just came from the electrical repulsion from the charge induced in objects around where the lightning struck and the white spark came from the charge “arcing” through damp air in the shower. Tiles are pretty good insulator so I would expect the lightning to go through the waterpipe instead of your friend’s body.

More on the “bath blasts”