People around the world are struck by lightning every year. Although most people survive the impact, they experience serious injuries to their body and mind. One of the rarest and most striking symptoms is known as lightning flowers.
What are lightning flowers?
If you are lucky enough to survive a lightning strike, in addition to the physical and psychological consequences, you will see a kind of tree or root-shaped tattoo on your body: lightning flowers. These are generated when a body that does not conduct electricity receives a high electric charge.
Lightning flowers, also known as Lichtenberg figures, are produced when the capillary vessels under the skin break due to the lightning discharge. The appearance or shape we see would mark the path and degree of absorption of the lightning. These natural “tattoos” do not last a lifetime, they only appear for a few hours or days until they disappear completely.
It should be noted that these figures can also appear in places where lightning strikes. Although it is not very common, there are occasions in which they have been observed in grassy areas where lightning has struck, such as golf courses or soccer stadiums.
These figures were discovered by the German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in 1977, after whom they are named. The so-called lightning flowers had such peculiar ramifications that they generated great interest and began to be studied.
Nature is as beautiful as it is dangerous. That is why every precaution is too little when faced with natural phenomena such as a thunderstorm.
