The personnel had been handled at Eisenhower Army Medical Heart, the place one of many troopers later died. The medical heart declined to remark. Bowman mentioned she couldn’t launch the names or models of the service members concerned. The Army is withholding additional particulars pending notification of the soldier’s household.
“Hopefully by midday tomorrow, we’ll have extra data,” Bowman mentioned by cellphone.
Fort Gordon is situated about 10 miles west of downtown Augusta, Ga., close to the border with South Carolina. It largely homes Army models and hosts some 80,000 individuals, together with 16,000 service members.
The navy has lightning security precautions in place. For example, troopers could also be requested to take away tactical gear, to go away weapons on the bottom and to keep up distances of as much as 15 toes from one another. Army manuals advise troopers to take away objects which will “produce a metallic upward projection, corresponding to a radio or rifle,” and to disperse to attenuate the probabilities of a number of accidents from a strike.
Nonetheless, the chance of lightning damage stays. In August 2015, the Army Ranger Faculty was conducting the swamp section of its coaching in Florida, with lightning lockdown procedures in place. However when a bolt struck a tree, spreading electrical present all through the wooded space, dozens of troopers had been injured, with 18 dropping consciousness, in line with a 2017 research revealed within the journal Navy Medication.
The percentages of getting struck by lightning in any given yr are lower than 1 in 1 million in america, and the overwhelming majority of individuals survive such strikes. Many service members spend extra time outdoor than most of the people, and lightning fatalities are extra widespread within the Southeastern United States, in line with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Florida, which the CDC calls America’s “lightning capital,” logged 79 strike-related deaths within the 2006-2021 interval. Georgia has one of many highest lightning fatality charges within the nation, with 16 deaths throughout that point. July is probably the most harmful month for lightning strikes in america.
