Russian tourist survives lightning strikes and shares his impressions

A Russian tourist was struck by lightning as he was dancing on a pier in Georgia. The man miraculously survived the lightning strike and suffered only minor injuries.

Pavel Smirnov, a 32-year-old man, his friends and brother came from Samara for a holiday in Batumi, Georgia. On September 11 in the evening, they gathered on the pier to record a short video to the music of Neuromonk Feofan.

Click here to see more photos and videos of the incident.

The lightning struck the men as they were dancing on the pier. Pavel collapsed instantly. His clothes caught fire. Paramedics later said that the man suffered burns to his stomach, back and legs. Doctors were surprised that he was still alive and received minor injuries. The young man is currently recovering at the Republican Hospital of Batumi.

Pavel Smirnov later said that he thought he had died and saw light at the end of the tunnel.

"The first thing I saw was a tunnel with light. I was dancing, a second passed and I was dying. It seemed to me that everything was burning, as if I was in hell, it was hard to breathe, I could not move my legs and arms. I thought I'd hold out a little longer and then either suffocate or burn to death. It seemed like my insides and body were burning. Then I heard from the guys that it was lightning. I began to realise what had happened, but it felt like I was about to die. Pain from burns was everywhere — pain in the guts, inside my legs and all over my skin — everywhere. It was very difficult to breathe, it seemed like I couldn't get a breath. My thoughts were: "Well, it seems like a normal death, it's too bad it came so quickly, though."

Pavel's friends and brother called an ambulance and gave him first aid.

"They were looking at me from above, asking me how I was, and I said something like, "I feel really bad, I can't move, bro!" My brother put out the shirt that was burning on me. My sneakers were torn to shreds, my underwear was badly burned, the shorts looked like they were shot at from a shotgun."

Pavel Smirnov currently undergoes treatment at the Republican Hospital in Batumi. They will let him go home in two or three days.

Pavel can already walk, he speaks to his friends on the phone. They joke that Pavel has developed superhero superpowers, like in "Misfits" television show.

The man feels cheerful. He is glad that he can move his limbs and his "engine is working".

Details

A lightning strike or lightning bolt is a lightning event in which the electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning. A less common type of strike, ground-to-cloud (GC) lightning, is upward-propagating lightning initiated from a tall grounded object and reaching into the clouds. About 25% of all lightning events worldwide are strikes between the atmosphere and earth-bound objects. Most are intracloud (IC) lightning and cloud-to-cloud (CC), where discharges only occur high in the atmosphere. Lightning strikes the average commercial aircraft at least once a year, but modern engineering and design means this is rarely a problem. The movement of aircraft through clouds can even cause lightning strikes.

Batumi historically Batum or Batoum, is the second-largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest, 20 kilometers north of the border with Turkey. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of the Caucasus. Much of Batumi's economy revolves around tourism and gambling (it is nicknamed "The Las Vegas of the Black Sea"), but the city is also an important seaport and includes industries like shipbuilding, food processing and light manufacturing. Since 2010, Batumi has been transformed by the construction of modern high-rise buildings, as well as the restoration of classical 19th-century edifices lining its historic Old Town.