Windsurfer struck by lightning
Originalni clanak objavljen je 26.06.2004 u rijeckim novinama Novi List i moze se pogledati ovdje
This is the transcript from Croatian newspaper Novi List. The original article was published 26.6.2004 and can be found here
Windsurfer struck by lightning
Denis Sverko, 36-year-old car mechanic from Pavlovac, Opatija (Croatia) was born again yesterday afternoon. He was struck by a lightning while windsurfing in front of Volosko along with dozen of other DSNM club members. The lightning struck the top of the mast, burnt the top of the sail, went down thru the mast, jumped to the board and burned a hole through it. Lucky Denis ended up only with slightly burned hands.
Eyewitnesses told everything happened in the split of the second, the surfer and the blinding lightning resembling the cartoon sequence.
Denis himself had not much to say, being in the middle of this split-second:
"There was a thunderstorm coming and the north "kranjica" bora wind was blowing. 10 of us from club went outside. We were around 200 meters from the Volosko harbor when thunder struck. I instantly knew it struck my rig and my first thought was "Oh my God, I was struck by thunder". The sparks burst from the mast and the boom I was holding at. Then, a force threw me into the sea. I was conscious all the time and immediately I started to swim toward damaged board. I sat on the board to calm down and rest, and then went back to harbor together with everybody else. Once ashore, I figured out the top sail section was damaged, the lighting went thru mast and went thru board just next to mast joint."
That was the story from fairly excited Denis Sverko who survived the thunder strike while wind surfing.
Photo of Denis, next to his damaged board, copied from newspaper article
I had the chance to look at the damaged (now fixed) board myself, couple of month later. The both holes, input and output, were about 3 cm wide. (R.Simac)
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