The Guinness Book of Records is simply teeming with unique cases and incredible achievements, astonishing humanity time and again with amazement mixed with horror.
Roy Sullivan, a ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, also inscribed his name on one of its pages. The American could rightfully be called a walking misfortune. Or the luckiest «human lightning rod» in the world. Lightning struck Roy Sullivan seven times – and he stayed alive! It was something mystical. Apparently, unknown forces decided to play a joke on poor Roy, testing him for endurance. And the lightning followed at his heels, choosing the convenient moment.
The first incident
In April 1942 the raging elements forced the ranger to take shelter in a wooden fire-watch tower. The delighted Roy thought he would calmly wait it out in this reliable and warm place. But as ill luck would have it, there was no lightning rod on the tower. A lightning strike on the tower caused an instant fire. And Sullivan barely managed to leap outside. The lightning caught up with him at once, knocking the poor fellow to the ground. As a result, Roy received a burn to his right leg from the strike – and a sizable hole in his boot.
27 years later
The ranger's next work trip in July 1969, driving a truck through the park, gave no hint of trouble. Except that the elements kicked up a little. However, within a moment the bright flashes in the leaden sky and the booming thunder put Roy on his guard. Only a few minutes passed before lightning felled trees by the road. And the next strike landed right on the truck's window. Sullivan lost consciousness. By a stroke of luck, the truck, which had gone out of control, stopped at the very edge of a steep cliff. The lightning strike seemed to shave off most of the hair on Roy's head and singed his eyelashes and eyebrows with fire.
A year later, the lightning «paid a visit» to Sullivan's home. Without delay, it struck the transformer. And the discharge, ricocheting off it, hit the unlucky American's left shoulder. Roy received a severe burn this time in the yard of his own home.
In 1972 lightning, as if lying in wait for the American, all but burned off his head of hair. The unfortunate ranger put out the fire on his head with a wet towel. Now he seriously believed in the existence of supernatural forces that were pursuing him. So, just in case, he carried a container of water with him.
At the beginning of August 1973 Roy Sullivan, as usual, was in the national park. But spotting an approaching thunderstorm, he hurried to leave the area urgently by car. Reckoning that the danger had already passed him by, he sighed with relief and got out of the car. But the lightning was treacherous. It had apparently been waiting for this moment – and struck! A moment later Roy felt the left side of his body go numb and his hair catch fire. With great difficulty he managed to reach the saving container of water.
A fateful pursuit
The lightning would mark its «favorite» two more times. Such a thing happened at the beginning of June 1976 – and a year later it recurred in the same summer month. Burns on his stomach and chest and singed hair would become yet another testament to the lightning strikes, which simply could not leave the park ranger in peace.
Everything that happened to Roy Sullivan would be set out in an official document and in the medical report of the doctors who carefully examined the ranger's burns. Alas, Roy Sullivan, who had been on the verge of inevitable death several times, could not endure the rejection of the woman he loved. And, with a broken heart, in his 72nd year he took his own life.
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