Thinking Outside the Box (Or Staying in the Box)

It's funny how we complicate things in our life. There was a thunderstorm today and the topic turned to lightning strikes.

Lightning wants to find the shortest path to the ground, so that's why you are a standing target if you are standing outside and lightning decides that you are the fastest route to the ground. Everyone knows that, right?

The discussion triggered someone's memory of being electrocuted during a thunderstorm but they switched to electricity instead of lightning. It was my fault for mentioning that cars are grounded with their rubber tires but the car can still be struck by lightning so if that happens don't touch anything in the car.

They had seen some old television show many years ago that stayed with them, about people being trapped in a car by a live wire that had fallen during a storm and went on to talk about how difficult it was to get the people out of the car with that live wire threatening their lives.

She described all the complicated procedures the rescue team attempted to extricate the people from the car without being shocked and that it was very dangerous and complicated.

I said, "Or they could have just turned off the power."

That was met with a blank stare and glazed eyes for a few moments then a rambling explanation of how that was not possible.

It sounded simple to me. If they're trapped by a live wire and did not die in the initial confrontation of wire meeting car they are safe as long as they don't touch anything. They can turn power off. Simple. If it was me sitting in a car charged with an electrical current from a live power line I would patiently wait for someone back at the station to flip the switch to off.

It's sort of like someone complaining about a light bothering them when they sleep and inviting all sorts of suggestions to combat the light, such as a sleeping mask, pulling the blankets over your head, etc, etc. My suggestion would be to turn off the switch.

We get that way sometimes, too focused on helping to solve a problem when we lose sight of the basic question, what is causing the problem?