Nature, Gender and Behavior: 82% of People Struck By Lightning Are Male

Behavior and science. Cant have one without the other...It is summer and so thunder storms with lightning accompaniment are at their peak. You would assume that lightning strikes that hit people would be randomly distributed across the population with some degree of equality with regard to gender. And you would be wrong.

It turns out that men have been hit 82% of the times that lightning strikes people. Basically because men do not respect Mother Nature. They want to finish their game or their lawn mowing and so they go down in flames, as it were. While cognizant of stretching the analogy too far, this behavioral inclination towards risk is evident in other fields of human endeavor like finance. Maybe something we should be measuring more frequently, no? JL

Ken Kaye reports in the Sun-Sentinel:

"When it comes to lightning, females are cautious and males are reckless.
The result: Between 1995 and 2008, lightning killed 648 people, and of those, 82 percent were male, according to AccuWeather.com.

“Men take more risks in lightning storms,” said John Jensenius, of the National Weather Service, adding that males are less willing to walk away from recreational activities or sports. Indeed, those pastimes are involved in almost half of all lightning-related deaths, according to Popular Science.
Florida sees more thunderstorms and lightning than anywhere else in the United States, with South Florida, Tampa Bay and the Interstate 4 corridor near Orlando tied for seeing the most bolts per year, the weather service said. For instance, Tampa Bay once recorded up to 50,000 flashes in June alone.

While there have been no local deaths this year, lightning has so far killed six people nationwide, all of them male. Among them: A 26 year-old-man, playing baseball in Ruby, S.C., on June 21, and a 49-year-old man, golfing in Shreveport, La., on June 7.

Since 1959, lightning has killed 94 people in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, or an average of about two per year. On average, another 10 are injured each year. Most of the deaths, more than 70 percent, occurred during June, July and August.

In Central Florida, from Tampa Bay to Melbourne, more than 110 people were killed in the same time period. The last: A young man was killed in Melbourne Beach in July 2009, the weather service said.

On July 4, 2009, in Polk County, lightning struck in a field as a church group was in the middle of a soccer game and picnic. One man died, 18 were injured.

In July 2007, in Pinellas County, lightning struck a 16-year-old boy and his mother, while they were on Treasure Island Beach. The bolt hit the boy in the chest, knocking him unconscious. He died four days later. The mother was not seriously injured.

Those aged 10-19 are struck more than any other age group, as school is out and children frequently play outside, the weather service said.