The amazing odds of Calvary
Roy Sullivan is either the world’s luckiest man or the world’s most unlucky man, depending on your perspective. Mr. Sullivan worked as a park ranger in Shenandoah National Park, and still holds the Guinness World Record for being the person struck by lightning the most times. About 270 people are struck each year in the US, and 10 percent of those are fatal strikes. The chances of being struck by lightning once are 15300:1 and being struck twice in your lifetime is exponentially more unlikely. From 1942 to 1977 Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning not twice, nor three times, but seven times! That sounds like he would be the unluckiest person on earth. But amazingly, he suffered no major injuries, besides a burn on his legs, a lost toenail, scorched eyebrows, and hair that caught on fire on five of the seven occasions. Sounds pretty lucky to me. Understandably, Roy developed a severe phobia of storms. After the fourth encounter, he began to avoid being in crowds, in order to keep others sa