Roy Sullivan, the human lightning rod, is buried in Edgewood Cemetery near Weyers Cave. Rumors spread that Pat shot her husband, but it was determined Sullivan killed himself. 28, 1983, Sullivan died suddenly not from a lightning bolt but from a single. The last seven strikes were verified by Park Director Taylor Hoskins.Īround 3:00 a.m. The Guinness Book of World Records stated Sullivan was officially stuck seven times, but unofficially, he was struck eight – he never counted the 1920s scythe strike, as he could not prove it. ![]() “If he were, the first lightning strike would have been enough.” “I do not think God is behind this,” Sullivan told a reporter in 1972. Then, as he scrambled dazed to his car, he had to beat away a black bear that was stealing the trout on his line. He sustained burns to his upper body and clothing and hearing loss in one ear. While trout fishing June 25, 1977, he took another sudden bolt to the head which blew him out of his boat. Sullivan retired from the Park Service November, 1976, but his bad luck was not over. On June 5, 1976, Sullivan got struck for the sixth time as he walked on Sawmill Shelter Trail, only a mile from where he had been struck in 1969. The chief said “I’ll see you later, Roy.” One day he was walking with the Chief Ranger when they saw lightning way off in the distance. Thinking he was safe and emerging from his truck, he actually saw the bolt shoot out, then hit him in the face, again setting his hair on fire and knocking off his left shoe.Ī restaurant on Loft Mountain would not let him inside if it was overcast. Strike #5 occurred three weeks later as he tried to outrace a storm on the Skyline Drive. Quickly noticing his hair was on fire, he extinguished the blaze with wet paper towels and drove himself to Waynesboro Community Hospital. On April 16, 1972, Sullivan was registering visitors in a guardhouse near Loft Mountain campground when a sudden bolt destroyed an electric panel box beside him. One year later, Sullivan and his fourth wife Pat were tending garden when lightning suddenly streaked out of a clear sky, exploding a pole transformer then striking his left shoulder. Knocked unconscious, with most of his hair and eyebrows burned away and his wristwatch fried, his truck rolled to a stop at the edge of a very deep ditch. Then in July, as he drove south on the Skyline Drive, lightning struck through the open windows of his truck. In April, 1942, while manning the Miller’s Head Overlook fire tower, a vicious storm blew in and according to Sullivan “… fire was jumping all over the place.” He climbed down and ran, but was immediately struck, searing a scar down his right leg and blowing the nail off his big toe.įrom 1942 to 1969, Sullivan went through three wives but was left alone by Mother Nature. Hired to the fire patrol in 1940, Sullivan was responsible for monitoring Rockfish Gap north to Swift Run Gap. In the early 1930s, Sullivan joined the Civilian Conservation Corps creating the Shenandoah National Park. ![]() As he helped his father cut wheat, lightning struck his scythe, knocking him to the ground and setting the field on fire. “Some people are allergic to flowers,” Sullivan told a Waynesboro News-Virginian reporter in June, 1977, “but I’m allergic to lightning.”īorn February, 1912 in Greene County, Sullivan’s legacy began in the 1920s. Sullivan, had already been struck by lightning seven times, and still had one more to go, earning a dubious world record that stands today. There was good reason for this eccentric arrangement the trailer owner, retired Shenandoah Park Ranger Roy C. 6 copper wire, grounded on spikes sunk seven feet in the ground. In 1977 there was a mobile home off Route 340 near Dooms strangely covered with 12 lightning rods, affixed to all four corners of the trailer, on the TV antenna, the electric meter and in six of the taller nearby trees.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |