One of the most scary points of my life was getting caught out in the open during an approaching lightning storm. Knowing how to react when face in a situation like this is essential for your own well being and safety.

The most important rule to remember when you see thunder and lightning is the 30-30 rule

30-30 lightning and thunder rule

• Seek shelter if there is less than 30 seconds between lightning and thunder. It is close enough to cause harm.

• Stay in shelter until 30 minutes after the last lightning flash.

It has been estimated that world wide there are some 16 million lightning storms per year.

As with most people, when these thunder and lightnening storms approach you will be sheltering in a relatively safe building, such as a home, school, office building etc. However, even inside you should not be complacent and take appropriate precautions.

Firstly, as like all good boy scouts you should always be prepared in advance, the single most important safety device is a lightning protection system, such as a lightning rod / lightning conductor. A rooftop lightning rod is usually a metal strip or rod, made from a good conductor such as copper or aluminum. There lightning protection systems are regularly installed on trees, monuments, bridges and even water vessels to protect from lightning damage.

Okay, now we done that, we are safe, we can put our feet up and relax. Nope, lightning is a cunning beast, as if lightning strikes an outside telephone pole or electric pylon, the current from the lighting bolt will typically travel through the wiring or the plumbing into the ground. Consequently, the pipes, telephone cables, and electrical sockets can carry the lighting into your home.

Simple precautions can be taken, by staying away from showers, sinks, baths. Ensuring electical equipment has surge protectors or are unplugged from the sockets. Only use cordless telephones rather than wired telephones during the time of the thunder and lightning.

Lightning can damage or destroy electronics so it's important to have a proper lightning protection system connected to your electronic equipment

Outdoors is the always the most dangerous place to be during a lightning storm. No outside place is fully safe in lightning and lightning.

Areas to avoid in a thunder and lightning storm: any high locations, open flat fields, isolated tall objects such as trees, pylons, towers, swimming pools, boating on a lake etc. Additionally, avoid any metal objects such as electric wires, fences, etc as the current from the lightning strike can cover a large distance along these objects. Unsafe places include sheltering underneath canopies or near trees. It is worth emphasising that trees may help keep yourself dry in a lighting storm, but what is the point in having a dry corpse. As trees are more often than not one of the higher objects in the environment they become the conductors of lightning to the ground. However, due to sap being a poor conductor, its resistance to electricity causes the sap to be super heated into steam, which blows of the bark, you can see this in the video clips.

Nevertheless, you can greatly increase your chance of survival by reacting appropriately at the first sign of a strike. Before you are struck by lightning, you may feel your hair stand up on end as the lightning is trying to find a path to the earth, sometimes you can have a tingle sensation on your skin or crackling sounds in your ears. On these signs you are in danger, squat down as low to the ground as possible while remaining on the balls of your feet, you do this to minimise contact with the earth. Cover your ears with your hands to protect your ear drums and bend your head down and between your knees. If you are with a group, spread out ate least 5 meters away from each other.

Unfortunately, lightning can strike no matter how many precautions you try to take. Although lightning rapidly heats the air in its immediate vicinity to around 36,000 °F , the duration of the strike is a very short amount of time. Therefore, surprisingly around 90% of people struck by lightning do survive to tell the tale.

If you are struck by lightning, it goes without saying that you need to seek immediate medical attention as soon as possible as even if you seem okay, there can be internal damage done to your organs.

If you have seen another person get struck by lightning, don't worry about any residual charge being left of the person, this is a myth, so administer first aid care as soon as you are able to. Remember your ABC, check Airways, check Breathing, check Circulation.

And finally, contrary to the popular belief that lightning never strikes twice in the same location, some people have been struck by lightning over three times.