Lightning deaths: Getting rarer
- Blog Post by: Colleen Stoxen
- July 18, 2013 - 12:01 PM
A surprising QuickStat from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today. Deaths from lightning have taken a huge drop since 1968 in the United States. Over the 43 years since then ('68 to 2010), deaths from lightning dropped by 78.6% among males and 70.6% among females. A total of 3,389 deaths from lightning were recorded, an average of 79 per year. The highest yearly total of deaths from lightning (131) was recorded in 1969, and the lowest total (29) was recorded in 2008 and again in 2010. During the period, 85.0% of lightning deaths were among males.
Most deaths occur in the South and the Midwest. The highest number of fatalities usually occur in Florida and Texas. Minnesota had one lightning death in 2012. One of every four struck-by-lightning deaths was work-related.
Read more from the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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