A routine lightning protection protocols training session for the a group of Army Rangers resulted in a real life lesson on the dangers of Florida’s electrical storms.
It appears that 44 teachers and students in the training session, carried out nearby to Pensacola’s Englin Air Force Base, ended up being struck by lightning during a storm, twenty of those that were struck required medical attention.
“Ranger students and instructors are tough,” Col. David Fivecoat, the Airborne and ranger Training Brigade’s commander, told CNN Thursday. Thirty one “students will return to training tonight and continue with increased medical monitoring as they try to earn their Ranger tab.”
The class of Ranger students had two female members, neither of them were injured during the strike.
“Summer is the most dangerous season for lightning,” the weather service warns on its website. “Most lightning fatalities occur in June, July and August.”
