Struck by Lightning: What I Learned as a Tree Planter
The day started out in the Stum like every other day in the Stum as a tree planter: rainy, cold, and miserable. In fact, the only way we would have felt any sense of impending doom would have been if it had been a nice and sunny day. But it wasn’t and so we didn’t. The Stum is the name given to an area of forest around Prince George, British Columbia, and as my friend Andrew has said, it is an area just about as lovely as it’s name. Tree planting is not always pretty.
I looked around and realized that in this open field I was competing for tallest object, and winning.
Our 10 pack of planters had been working some muddy trenches for a few days. Trenches are these long lines of overturned dirt that fill up quickly with water. They are tough on the body but let tree planters move fast and make money. Unfortunately in the context of what was to come, standing in an open field, in trenches filled with water, was not optimal.
The day itself was like any other, in that it rained. In the early afternoon, however, a storm began to roll in. As a tree planter, I’ve gotten used to planting in inclement weather, but something was different about this storm. The thunder and lightning approached at a velocity and ferociousness that took us by surprise; it was a storm that wanted to leave its mark. It was a storm that made me take out my headphones and think to myself: “I hope I don’t die.”
Lightning struck in the distance and I counted: “one, two, three, four…” BANG! Another strike: “one, two, three…” BANG! Another strike and the storm was now overhead. There were flashes in the distance and electricity in the air and yet I did not really think to stop working. I looked at my feet, they were in water. I looked around and realized that in this open field I was competing for tallest object, and winning.
And then it hit… BANG! 150 feet away from me a white, blinding light struck the ground. Before I had the chance to react the electricity ran through the ground, up my legs, up my shovel, through my body and exited from my wrists as two balls of painful light. I yelled (or screamed) and the next thing I remember was opening my eyes as I lay on the ground. Then as quickly as it came in, the storm moved off.
In shock, I found my feet and ran to the “safety” of the logging road. For an inexplicable reason I was laughing the entire way. As I reached the cache, Andrew was running towards me.
“Did you just get hit by lightning“? He yelled, also laughing.
“Oh man, I did, I did,” I yelled back.
Andrew had been hit by the same bolt as I had been and had fallen backwards and passed out. After figuring out our game plan(we had no game plan), we began to hear screaming from down the block. Crouched low we began to run towards the disembodied voices in the distance. Several hundred yards away, the majority of our crew had gathered near the road in a depression. Everyone’s faces were white and some were crying.
Before Andrew and I were struck, another bolt had come down, run through the ground and made its way up Julien’s shovel. At the same time, another bolt hit the back of Dani’s quad, travelled up her spine and launched her to the ground. Though in shock, we were alive. I had an irregular heartbeat for the rest of the day, Andrew had burns on his body, Dani came out OK considering and Julien lost the feeling in his hand for the rest of the day. The storm moved off and we called it a day at 2pm.
Struck by Lightning, a Learning Experience for Tree Planters?
Did I learn anything from this experience? It is hard to say, really. The first thing we did was drive straight to a corner store and bought lottery tickets. Sadly, none of the numbers matched even though winning the lottery seemed like the logical conclusion to getting struck by lightning. I learned a hard lesson in reality concerning planting companies in that they care only about your safety so long as it conveniences them. We understandably finished our day early and as we walked out another foreman(who is now a supervisor for this company) passed us by and called us a “bunch of pussies” for going to the truck. Sadly that attitude was endemic within the company I worked for. I learned just this year that our supervisor at the time did not believe our story. He thought we made the entire incident up to get out of work!
The reality of the situation is that I learned very little from this experience. I’m now a little frightened of lightning but I have since encountered numerous storms and have worked through all of them. To be sure, there was something special about the storm that hit us, a ferocity that I have not since seen. Yet it is rare for any planter to actually stop working during lightning. In fact, little in the way of danger stops silviculture workers from working.
I hesitate sometimes to call this experience a “close call” even though the reality was that the way in which we were struck is the way most people die. I believe that if anything, the lesson learned from this experience is to trust your gut and that as silviculture workers, we need to be OK with putting down our shovels. The macho attitude that pervades our field is silly, troublesome and dangerous. It does, however, make for good stories.