A few weeks into his new job as a forensic pathologist, Ryan Blumenthal got a call to examine a dead body that had been found in a field. The deceased person's clothing was torn and her eardrums had burst. "It looked quite the disturbing scene," said Blumenthal, who now works at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
The culprit, however, was not a serial killer, but lightning. This electrically charged phenomena can send millions of volts of electricity through the body, and its destructive power sent Blumenthal down the path of becoming one of the world's top lightning pathologists. But what, exactly, happens when lightning strikes a person? And what happens if that person survives?
