On Wednesday, just south of the Butts Army Airfield, a dozen soldiers training in an open field were heading for shelter when lightning struck—literally. Shelter and low ground weren’t far, but all of the soldiers were hit by a lightning bolt and had to be hospitalized.
Lightning is such a frequent visitor to Colorado, there is a siren set up by the training field specifically to alert soldiers of potential danger. "They were on their way to get to low ground, get into some vehicles and stuff, when they were struck by the lightning," Major Earl Brown reported to UPI. One was in critical condition; the others were all stable.
Wednesday was also notably the day that new data on lightning was released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The data showed that men are five times more likely than women to be struck by lightning writes Yahoo! News. The results were based on deaths directly resulting from lightning strikes. Though no reason is given to explain the phenomenon—and there’s no word on the genders of the soldiers—deaths from lightning strikes are declining for both genders.
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