Most unlucky man

The Human Lightning Conductor

They say lightning never strikes twice – but it struck Roy Sullivan a whopping seven times. Yes, seven. Roy was a U.S. park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and holds the Guinness World Record for the amount of times lightning has struck one human being.

Ponder this for a moment – the odds of being struck by lightning once in your lifetime are roughly 3,000 to 1. Being struck seven times has odds of around twenty-two septillion to one. That’s 22,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1!

You’d think that after the sixth time you’d probably just stay inside… or start buying lottery tickets – but not Roy! The final time was arguably the most impressive.

After Roy was struck while he was fishing, a bear then added insult to quite severe injury by trying to steal a trout from his fishing line. Having none of it, Sullivan had enough energy to strike the bear with a branch and get his fish back. That’s tough.