Adventure Island Lightning Incident

In March 2012, a student was struck and killed by lightning on a Malaysian university football field while he was within the claimed protection zone of a French-made early streamer emission (ESE) lightning rod (i.e. air terminal). [Mike Holt newsletter of May 23, 2012]

Following the posting of the incident report, the authors were informed about a similar incident that had occurred recently at the Adventure Island theme park in Tampa, Florida, USA. In that incident, a young lifeguard supervisor of the park was struck and killed by lightning while he was on duty at the Key West Rapids water slide.

A survey of the park revealed that the water slide was located between two French-made ESE lightning rods. This suggests that the fatal incident was located within the claimed ESE protection zones of one or both lightning rods.

Click here or on the image to complete reading the report on the Adventure Island Incident written by Z.A. Hartono & I. Robia (13 pages, 1,149KB)