Did you know that you can literally eat lightning?
Let's talk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning! - Thank you for making us...
- ...a part of your daily routine. - As a kid, I was deathly afraid of...
...lightning. But I also wanted to be a weatherman.
- That's called the weatherman's dilemma. - (laughing) Well, I did not call it...
...that, but I think you're right, because it rocked my childhood.
And it's a well founded fear, because sometimes when people get
struck by lightning, they get hurt. Sometimes they die. But sometimes
they just get burned in a really weird way and they have an amazing story...
- ...to tell. - And then sometimes we tell those...
...stories on GoodMythical Morning, like right now.
- Yes. - Lemme take you to Essex...
England, 2009. Sophie Frost was taking a nice, romantic walk with her...
- ...boyfriend in a field. - Oh, yeah. That's what you do over...
- ...there. There's field everywhere. - Well, a storm came up. She got...
... struck by lightning, and it knocked her unconscious. Now, she suffered...
- ...temporary damage to her eyes. - Mm. Temporary.
Temporary blindness. And a perforated eardrum. The KABAM, I guess.
- Or maybe the electricity. - No, I think it's the noise:..
- ...the thunder part. Yeah. - It could have been.
But, thankfully, she was listening to music on her iPod.
- Oh! - And listen to this. She survived...
...a 300,000-volt surge only because the lightning travelled through the iPod
wires and down through the iPod, and then BAM! Out in the knee region.
- (laughing) - So it diverted the electricity...
- That's convenient. - ...away form her vital organs.
- Right. Okay, I get it. - And check out this photo, okay?
This is her displaying the clothes that she was wearing at the time.
And if you look at that pink-orange shirt there, you can see the path...
- The wire! - Yeah, where the wire actually was.
And she was, like, layered up that day. She had the t-shirt, and then she had
this button-up on top of it. And look at the scar on her chest.
I know. And that's the hole, where her hand's coming through her pants
where I guess the lightning escaped the iPod.
I will make one observation, though. This is a fashionable look.
These would sell. They'd be very expensive to manufacture.
- Oh, yeah. - You'd probably run through a lot of...
- ...people. - Well, I also think this is a great...
...superhero origin story. She could be, like, Electro-Cutie!
- 'Cause she's... - Oh, that's, oh!
But what are her powers? She just listens to music?
- Yeah. - And if she gets truck by lightning...
- ...she survives. It's like... - (laughing)
- "I'm here to help!" - It's a defensive thing.
Well, I wonder what she was listening to. ♪ (A thunder rose) ♪
- ♪ (And the lightning strikes my iPod) ♪ - No, I like to think she was listening...
...to, um... What is that ACDC- Thunderstruck.
- Thunderstruck. - (impersonating ACDC) ♪ (You've been) ♪
- ♪ (Thunderstruck!) ♪ - (crew offscreen laughing)
- That's all I've got. ♪ (Thunderstruck!) ♪ - That's...
- ♪ (You've been Thunderstruck!) ♪ - No, that's what her boyfriend said...
- ...to her afterward. - How does that guy do that for a whole...
- ...concert, and a whole lifetime? - I don't know.
All right, now, my mom always said, "Now, don't take a shower when there's
- a thunderstorm." - Oh, yeah.
Which happens a lot in North Carolina: showering and thunderstorms.
- Yeah, that's a no-no. -And I was always like, "Okay, Mom.
But I don't think that's how it works." Well, Momma, you were right,
just like you always are. I'm gonna take you to Croatia in 2006.
Natasha Timarovic was brushing her teeth. She wasn't taking a shower, but she was
brushing her teeth. And she went in for the little after-brush refresher on the...
- ...faucet, like you do. Yes. - No.
And at that moment, as she was gettin' that faucet water, the building was
struck by lightning, and it travelled through the pipes and then travelled
into her mouth. And this point, you might think, "Okay. She got a burned-up mouth.
- Maybe she died." - (crew offscreen laughing)
No-no-no-no-no-no-no. The lightning travelled through her body, and
out her anus. She crapped lightning, everybody.
- Wow! - She literally digested -- ate and...
...digested -- lightning. And yes, I am happy to report -- I'm not happy to report.
I'm just trying to be truthful, here. She had severe burns on her anus.
- Wow. - Yeah, that's what happens. So you...
...think you had a hard time with that Carolina reaper later on?
- Oh, for real, man. - This is a few levels higher than that.
There's a little science here, because some people speculate that the reason
it went out of her anus is because she had on rubber shoes. But it's actually
probably a myth. Now, having on rubber shoes or rubber boots or having tires on
your car: none of that stops lightning that's travelled miles though air,
which is an insulator itself. It's gonna get to the ground. But sometimes it
might take a different path. So, in a lot of ways, this lightning chose her anus.
- (Link and crew offscreen laughing) - The lightning makes the decision...
- ...and it chose her anus! - Ladies and gentlemen, the headline...
...reads "Lightning has Proclivity for the Anus."
- Yep. - Shall we move on?
You know what? I'm gonna -- Can I stay in Croatia?
- Please! Let's stay there forever. - One year later, still in Croatia.
Ante Djindjic was riding his motorbike, and a storm comes up.
- But I guess he had to leak. - Oh!
- On the side of the road. - He had to leak.
- You usually say... Take a leak. Yeah. - Take a leak.
On the side of the road. And this would normally just be considered your...
- ...everyday lightning strike, except... - In Croatia.
...for the way that it chose to exit his body.
- Oh, gosh. You're not gonna tell me. - Yeah. The lightning made a choice...
- ...to exit via the pee stream. - Ahh. The lightning chose his penis.
"Now, do we have a picture of that?" you ask. Why would you ask?
- Don't ask that! - Do we have a picture of the moment?
That would be one heck of an inspirational poster.
No, but I do have a picture of a microwaved hot dog for visual reference.
- Oh, gosh. - He suffered only light burns.
The doctors were quoted as saying, "There will be no lasting effects, and...
his member would function normally eventually." (laughing)
Can you imagine hearing that from the doctor?!
- And possibly better! - Normally, eventually.
- You don't know. It could improve things. - Can you define eventually is what...
- ...I would be concerned about. - Well, can we just take a moment to...
...consider Croatia? Because the lightning in Croatia is choosing the private...
- ...parts to exit through. - Yeah, it is.
What is it about you, Croatian lightning? And why do you make these choices?
Hey, it's, uh... it's theirs to make. But I'm now not visiting.
Well, I'll tell you one thing. I'm not peeing on the roadside in Croatia,
and I'm definitely not drinking from the faucet.
And I was gonna wear rubber underwear, but you debunked that one.
I think if it's thick enough. You know what? That's what we could do.
We could sell really thick rubber underwear to Croatians.
(laughing)
- Finally, we know what our calling is. - The tagline is, "So the lightning can...
...exit you somewhere besides the anus or the penis."
- (laughing) - They'll sell like hotcakes.
- Oh, gosh! - Okay, Texas, 2011.
I tried just to say "member." I wasn't gonna say the p word.
- Hey, it's just biological, man. - Yeah, it is. it is.
- Nothing to be ashamed of. - Right. I'm not.
Winston Kemp. He's in Texas in 2011. The storm is rolling in and he's got
a garden of pumpkins. And he's like, "I gotta go protect my pumpkins
from this rain that's going to sustenance them." I don't know...
- ...what he was worried about. - That is a verb: sustenance.
(laughing) Sustain! Anyway, he goes outside and says, "Leave my...
- ...pumpkins alone, Mr. Storm!" - You're embellishing.
- No, he didn't say that. - Yeah.
Well, he goes outside to check on his pumpkins and lightning strikes the
neighbor's yard. That alone is kind of scary, when lightning strikes that...
- ...close to you. But you know what? - Mhm.
He's unscathed. He makes sure the pumpkins are... still dry? I don't know. Goes back
inside. 45 minutes later, he begins to develop a tingy- tingly sensation...
- A tingy. - ...in his left arm, which often means...
...that you're having a heart attack. But no, it means, for him, he had
been struck by lightning. It's called ground lightning, when lightning
strikes near you, and then there's this residual lightning that comes. And you
don't necessarily feel it in the moment, but what happens is you begin to scar.
So the next morning, he woke up. He had lightning scars down his arm.
- Here's a picture of him. - Whoa!
Now, this is actually called a Lichtenberg figure.
- That is awesome-looking! - It is a fractal pattern that lots of...
...things in nature form. This is how, like, veins grow.
I was gonna say that. It looks like frost on a window.
Frost does this. It happens all the time in nature, but, apparently, it also
happens when you get struck by lightning. Absolutely fascinating.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, why don't you get that tattooed
over? Well, somebody beat you to it. Look at this guy. He had lightning
strike, and he got tree tattooed in the pattern of his Lichtenberg scar,
and then put the date that he got struck by lightning.
- That's cool. - That is one cool tattoo!
I don't think it's worth getting struck by lightning to get that tattoo, but it's...
- ...still pretty cool. - Well, imagine that tree tattoo...
- ...coming out of your anus. - I'd prefer not to imagine that.
Thanks for liking, commenting, subscribing...
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...(laughing) with your family and friends.
- (laughing) You know what time it is! - You still know what time it is!
Hi, I'm [inaudible] from Manitoba, Canada.
- Let's spin The Wheel of Mythicality! - If you need to protect your head...
...from lightning, well, the mythical hat will not help. But you will look very cool.
- Get it at rhettandlink.com/store. - Click through to Good Mythical More.
We're gonna share the story of the human lightning rod: holds the world record for
the most number of lightning strikes on his person.
- Oh. - Unbelievable.
(Rhett) "Rhett is a slow-motion magician!"
- (Link humming) Hey! - Heeeey!
Just out here doing a little street magic today!
- Okay, okay. - (inhales) Yeah!
- All right. Show me something. - What's that?
- Make it quick. I've got somewhere to be. - What's that in your ear?
What do you mean?
- I... - Oh, haha! It's your phone!
You wanna see how I did that?
I just did.
[Captioned by Kevin: GMM Captioning Team]