Lightning Safety in Barsaat: Indoors, Outdoors and First Aid

The answer: if you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck, so get inside a proper building or a closed hard-topped car and stay there until 30 minutes after the last rumble. And if someone is hit, touch them straight away. A person struck by lightning carries no charge, and starting CPR at once can save a life.

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Monsoon evenings bring a familiar picture: charpais on the roof, boys playing cricket in the maidan, farmers finishing the last row, and someone running under the big neem tree when the first fat drops fall. All of it is risky. This guide explains why, what “safe” really means, which old beliefs about phones and rubber slippers are wrong, and exactly what to do if lightning hits someone near you. It sits in our Barsaat and Flood Season collection.

How close is too close? The 30-30 rule, explained simply

Light travels almost instantly while sound crawls along behind it, so you see the flash first and hear the thunder later, and the gap between them tells you roughly how far away the strike was, at about 3 seconds for every kilometre.

Here’s the catch. Lightning can jump well over 10 kilometres from the storm cloud, sometimes landing under blue sky ahead of the rain, which is why a gap of 30 seconds or less (roughly 10 km) is the signal to stop what you’re doing and move. Don’t wait for the rain. Thunder is enough.

The second 30 matters just as much, because many strikes happen as a storm moves away and people step back outside thinking it’s over, so wait a full half hour by the clock after the last thunder you hear before going back to the roof, the field or the ground. Then go.

1. See a flash, start counting (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two), and stop when you hear thunder; under 30 means go inside now, and constant thunder counts as under 30.
2. After the last thunder, wait 30 minutes by the clock before going back out.

Where lightning hits people: trees, rooftops, fields and tin sheds

Lightning takes the easiest path to the ground, usually the tallest thing around. In a field, that’s you.

Under a tree

The classic mistake. A tree is tall and wet, so it gets struck, and the current jumps sideways from the trunk into anyone standing close (a side flash) or spreads through the wet soil around the roots, which is how whole groups sheltering under one tree get hurt together.

On the roof

Summer nights on the chhat are part of desi life, but during a storm a flat roof makes you the high point of the house, and railings, water tanks, dish antennas and TV poles only add to it. Come down at the first rumble. The washing can wait.

Open fields, grounds and water

Farm workers, shepherds and cricket players get struck more than anyone, simply because they are out in the open with nothing taller nearby, and ponds, canals and flooded fields are worse still. Water spreads the current.

Tin sheds, kiosks and open verandahs

A tin-roofed dhaba, a bus stop or a tent does not protect you, because there’s no wiring or plumbing to carry the strike down safely and the current can pass through the people inside. A proper building has walls, a roof, wiring and pipes. So does a closed car with a metal roof, whose shell carries the current around you.

Indoors: phones, taps and appliances

A house is safest, but a strike can still travel along wires, phone lines and metal pipes. Close that gap.

• Stay off corded landline phones during the storm, though a mobile phone running on its own battery is fine to use indoors.
• Put off the bath, the wazu at the tap, the dishes and the laundry until the thunder passes. Pipes carry current.
• Don’t touch plugged-in appliances, computers or the iron. Unplug valuable electronics before the storm arrives, not during it.
• Keep away from windows, doors and verandahs, and don’t lean on concrete walls or lie on concrete floors in older homes with steel bars inside.

Myths about lightning that put people in danger

Myth: a mobile phone attracts lightning

It doesn’t. A phone is far too small to draw a strike, and the real danger is simply being outside, so don’t stand on the roof filming the storm.

Myth: rubber slippers or car tyres protect you

A few centimetres of rubber mean nothing to a bolt that just crossed kilometres of air; a car protects you because of its metal body and roof, not its tyres, which is why open jeeps, rickshaws, motorbikes and cycles offer none.

Myth: lightning never strikes the same place twice

Tall towers and lone trees get hit again and again. It sticks out, so it gets hit.

Myth: a struck person is “electric” and dangerous to touch

False, and this belief costs lives. The body doesn’t store electricity. You can touch, lift and help a struck person at once, as long as the storm isn’t still overhead where you’re standing.

Caught outside with nowhere to go

No spot outdoors is safe. Some choices lower the risk while you move toward shelter:

• Leave the high ground, the roof, the ridge, the open field. Get off bikes and away from metal fences, wires and poles.
• Get out of water and away from its edges.
• As a last resort, crouch low on the balls of your feet, feet together, head tucked, hands over ears. Never lie flat, since that puts more of you in contact with the ground.

First aid when someone is struck by lightning

Most people struck by lightning survive. The main killer is the heart stopping, and fast CPR can restart it.

1. Check you’re not in danger. If the storm is right overhead, move the person somewhere safer, quickly.
2. Call 1122 in Pakistan, 112 in India, or your local emergency number. Ask a bystander to do this while you start.
3. Touch them. No charge. Check breathing for up to 10 seconds.
4. If they are not breathing, start CPR: hard, fast chest presses in the centre of the chest, about 100 to 120 a minute, pushing down about 5 cm in an adult. Keep going until help arrives or they breathe.
5. If several people were hit, help the ones who look lifeless first. Those who are moving or crying out are breathing already.
6. Once breathing, lay them on their side. Keep them warm.
7. Cool any burns under clean running water for about 20 minutes, just as our kitchen burn first aid guide explains.

Lightning injuries aren’t the same as a household shock, but the first-aid basics overlap, and our guide to electric shock first aid (current lagna) walks through the house-wiring side. For long drives in the monsoon, keep a stocked kit in the boot; our car first aid kit checklist for Pakistan lists what belongs in it.

Lightning safety questions people ask