Quote:
Originally Posted by Brocktoon
Cat,
So according to your above post, a group of people in a large swimming pool would not all be killed if lightning struck the water of the pool?
This from Wiki Q&A should shed some light on that...
If your in a pool of water and the lightning strikes most of the charge won't travel through the water, because it is an insulater. It will travel through you the conductor. You are the path of least resistance (especially if your touching the bottom of the pool or the side of it). That is why people are killed in a pool from lightning strikes. Most of the people that survive such strikes were probably floating in the water, not touching anything else but the water (thus not completing a circuit).
I would suggest that most fish in the ocean do not get killed for this reason. Salt water is a very good conductor and as such the salt water pulls the path of the electricity from the lightning bolt around the fish, not through it. I would add this as another reason amoung the others above.