Roy Sullivan: The Man, The Myth, The Lightning Rod

For our 13th Episode, we are taking a look at perhaps the unluckiest man there ever was, in the true story of Roy Sullivan, the Spark Ranger or Human Lightning Rod. 

Between 1942 and 1977, Roy was struck by lightning seven times, and despite having his hair catch fire more than once and even coming round from a strike and immediately fighting off a bear, Roy lived to tell the tale. That is until he could no longer carry the weight of his bad luck.

But was it just bad luck? Was it science, or something more?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Honourable Mentions. Hello there, listener. How are you today, please? Welcome to the spectacular unlucky for some, but lucky for you, because you're listening, thirteenth episode of Honourable Mentions. Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

How are you? All right, thank you very much. I'm very good. Very good, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

You know your favourite hobby of calculating odds on betting. So if I was to say to you that if you were to go into Northampton, what are the odds on you having a terrible time?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I'll go probably I'll go evens on that.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Evans, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

What are the odds on you being struck by lightning? That's a difficult one for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Um Well, it's constantly raining there, isn't it? So it's quite high, but I'd go twenty to one on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I'm talking anywhere, yeah. Oh, anywhere in the world. Not just Northampton. You might be struck by the desolation of the place. But I think you'd be struck by the lightning. Probably.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Uh I would say five thousand to one.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. No. No. You're way out.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

No. Am I? Alright. Ten to one.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

No, the odds are about one in two million eight hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Is it really?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Of being struck by lightning.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Oh my quid on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

That's roughly the same as you making an intelligent comment at some point during this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

I think you should wind your neck in.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Have you got your fingers and toes to hand?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Uh I've got my fingers on my hands, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

What are the odds of getting struck by lightning seven times? Fifteen million some odd to one. The odds of being struck by lightning seven times, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Are roughly the same as the odds of going to Northampton and having a pleasant time.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Wow. So pretty much pretty much you can't put a price on it, can you?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Four point one five in ten trillion nonillion Really? That's a one followed by thirty-two zeros.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Oh. Very close to Googleplex.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Being struck by lightning seven times is not something that's very common, Neil, because it's a four point one five in ten trillion nonillion event. I think we've discussed this now at some length.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Or you could just say you're bloody unlucky.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Well, this is the thirteenth episode.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Unlucky for some, and the subject of today's Honourable Mentions was struck by lightning no less than seven times. They've probably got a lot of static. They probably should stop walking around with balloons ruined against the hair or something. Stop wearing a load of felt.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Does felt do that then?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Yeah, if you rub felt together. Last week when you were playing with your felt animals.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah. Do you remember that? Get a bit of a spark off it sometimes when you rubbed against it?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

No. That man in that van pulled up the side and asked me if I'd like my fuzzy felt.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Him. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh right, okay, yeah. Yeah, he didn't have any puppies.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Didn't he? No. Lion getting he.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Oh no. Shouldn't have got in the van, should I? Anyway, seven times the subject of today's honourable mentions. Was struck by lightning, Neil. Imagine such a thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Trying to.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

His name was Roy Cleveland Sullivan. And he was born in Green County, Virginia on February the seventh, nineteen twelve. To Arthur. To Arthur and Ida Sullivan, whose maiden name was Ida Schifflet.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Ida Schifflet.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Now remember that because that's going to be important in a little while.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Sounds like something to do with your genitals. What? Just Ida Schifflet, that's better. Ida Schifflett to one side.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah. He was the fourth of eleven children born to old Ida and Arthur.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Now I've learnt this in the past. Is there some tragedy coming along because of so many children? Go.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

That's a very good observation, Neil, and you've learnt your lesson from previous episodes. But I don't know of any tragedies apart from Roy himself getting struck by lightning seven times, which we will go through. But he was the fourth of eleven children and the first boy born in the family.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

So the girls b there must have been girls before that, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Oh, you have to get up early to catch you, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

He was the fourth of eleven children and the first boy. So how many girls were born before him?

SPEAKER_02 4:52

It would be the three girls before him.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Told you, you've got to get up early, listener.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

You've got to get up early to get this boy.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

You certainly have.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So as a boy, Roy lived a quiet and uneventful life. Which is really challenging when you're trying to find out things about him. The only thing we know for sure is that while working with his father out in the wheat fields one day, a lightning bolt struck the scythe he was using. But he emerged unharmed because the scythe was a wooden handle, wouldn't it? For it was a for it was a wooden handle.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah, see, I know that as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Because the lightning struck his scythe, not him, it wasn't counted in as an official timeline tally of no less than seven strikes over his lifetime. So you could argue that this fella was struck eight times by lightning.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

I don't want to argue it.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I said you could. I didn't say you had to.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Well, just saying you could argue, but I don't want to.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

That's fair enough. I don't want to argue about it either. No, I don't leave it. I don't I don't want to argue with you about arguing about that. You leave it. You leave it. Roy grew to be around six feet, which is 183 centimetres.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Tall. He was a broad-shouldered chap, often described as rugged and strong. And he bore a passing facial resemblance to the actor Gene Hackman.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Did he now?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

From Superman.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

He was in Superman.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

He was Lennox Luther, what his name is.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Lex Luther, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And he was also in French Connection. If you've ever seen that, that's a brilliant film.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

No, I've not seen it.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Well, it's got a great car chase in it, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Oh yeah, you have to watch that. In 1932, at the age of 20, Roy married local girl Martha Herring.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

She was a good catch.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

At the time they married, I'm I'm moving on from the good catch now. At the time they married, Roy was working in the stunning Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Virginia? On the trail of the Lunsen Pine. Involved in the hard labour of establishing the protected area of Shenandoah National Park.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And building Skyline Drive. A famous hundred and five mile scenic road running along the crest of the mountains through the park.

unknown 7:26

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

This would eventually lead to him taking a career as a park ranger and fire lookout in Shenandoah National Park in 1936, when he was but twenty-four years old.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

So you might have seen Yogi Bear.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

That was Jellystone Park.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

This is Shenandoah Park in the Blue Rich Mountains of Virginia. On the trail of the lonesome pine. Martha and Roy. Martha Martha and Roy had a son called Roy Sullivan Jr. Obviously, they're up all night thinking of what they could call that boy. Yeah. But at some point in time, now lost to history, Martha and Roy separated. And we know this because in August 1943, Roy was married again.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

So what's the name of Herring got smoked?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Oh twice. There you go. However, right, I'm ahead of myself. Because before Roy's second marriage, William has stepped back to visit April 1942, when Roy was 30 years old and six years into his park ranger career.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Why do we need to step backwards before we go to the road? Why wasn't he in the war? Why wasn't he in the war? That's a good question. Probably because he was a park ranger. I don't know. I don't know now. I don't know. We're not going into that. But why do you think we've had to step back a year from forty-three to forty two?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Because you missed something out.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

No. Well, yes, but it's it's the story. We're we're continuing the story.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Once upon a time, Roy was stationed as the fire lookout in the newly constructed Miller's Head Tower when a heavy storm set in. But there was no need to worry, because Roy's job was to observe the park, and observe the park, he will.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Which is probably why he didn't go to war, because he was just a jolly good observer of perks.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

You wouldn't need that. That's a nice job.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

You wouldn't need that, would you, over there?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

No.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

The tower was so new, lightning rods hadn't been installed yet. But not to worry again, because it wasn't made of flammable material. It was a stone structure.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

There you go then.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

But his lookout cabin, where Roy was keeping a lookout, obviously, that's what he was doing in the lookout cabin, had wooden components.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Which, combined with its high exposure location and equipment, like a wood burning stove, for example.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yeah, and a tin foil roof wasn't stupid.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Made it vulnerable to direct lightning strikes, but only on this relatively small cabin area of the entire structure. So if you will, Neil, it's like um an inconsequential thermal port on a Death Star.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I've got no idea how good lightning is at bullseye and womp rats and its T sixteen back home. Nope. See what I did there.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

But it managed a precise hit in Roy's cabin six or seven times.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

With everything, suddenly bursting into flames, Roy hurriedly escaped down to the ground where a fork of lightning struck him directly. Ouch. It burned a half inch strip all the way down my right leg, Roy said, and knocked my big toe off. My boot was full of blood, and it ran out through a hole, blasted through the sole.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Well at least it didn't finish too up.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

One way of looking at it, I suppose, in it. Yeah. Roy described the instance saying, Have you ever been shot real bad? It's worse than that. He said, If you've ever been scolded, it's much worse than that. It's like being cooked inside your own skin.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

So we can write to a chicken.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Why would you compare that to a chicken?

SPEAKER_02 11:24

They get cooked inside their own skins.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yes, but the chickens are largely dead before you do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

If you're listening to this list now, you are vegetarian or indeed vegan. Please address your emails to honourable mentionspod at gmail.com and if you could put Neil is a barbaric heathen in the headline and invent your spleen, they will be gratefully received. But Roy Sullivan, he recovered soon and then returned to work. So this was in 1942, and it was his first experience of a lightning strike. It was the following year he was married to Madeline Francis Schifflett.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

I told you. Oh. So Shifflet's come back again.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I told you to keep that name in mind, didn't I? You did. The Sullivan and Shifflet families are two of the most prominent and deeply interconnected surnames in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, particularly in the Green and Albemarle county areas. So if you remember Roy was born in the Green County. During the early 20th century, these mountain communities were relatively isolated, leading to a very high degree of intermarriage between a core families Sullivan's, Shifflets, Morrises, and Roaches. In Roy's case, marrying a Shifflet was not necessarily marrying a close first cousin, but rather a member of the same extended clan that he was already part of through both his mother and his grandmother. So it's the Blue Ridge Mountains equivalent of surnames not Smith and Jones and Goebbels.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

So basically they were just keeping it in the family quite literally.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

No, they weren't keeping it in the family quite literally, because as I've already described there, although Schifflit was his mother's maiden name, he was not related in any way, shape or form to his new wife, Madeline Schifflit.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Maddy Schifflit.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Madeline Frances Schifflett. So yes, although she had the name Schifflit, he wasn't related to her. Sadly, Roy and Madeline divorced on the twenty sixth of March 1945 in Page County, Virginia, after she had walked out on him. We don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

I'm shifting out of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Although his second marriage only lasted two years, Roy wed again on the fourth of April nineteen fifty, this time to Ruby, Virginia. Guess her surname.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

That's a funny one. Are they going to fill forms in? Ruby, guess her surname.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Shifflet, you fool boy. Her name was Ruby Virginia Schifflet.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

So it wasn't guess her surname then?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

No.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

So why do you say that?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Because I was asking you to guess her surname.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

That was a question.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I thought you'd have the intelligence. So again, Ruby was no relation to Roy or to Madeline Shifflet either.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Ruby, don't take your love to town. Was that Kenny Rogers?

SPEAKER_02 14:25

No idea. Don't care.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Ruby was born in 1933.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

So she's seventeen.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

So if you've been paying attention, that makes her a whole twenty-one years the junior of Roy.

unknown 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

So she wasn't even a scratch in her dad's underpants when he waltzed old Martha Herring down the aisle, was she?

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah. I know. Dirty pig.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

But guess what?

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Well, they got divorced.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

The marriage ended in divorce. We don't know when or why, but Ruby was married again in 1952, so it didn't last long. Maybe that's what Kenny Roger was on about. Ruby don't take your love to town. She did. Roy married for a fourth time.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Good hell.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

It was funny about Marry his lightning strikes. Roy married for a fourth time on the 18th of March, nineteen sixty-three, in Charlottesville, Virginia, to a lady named Patricia Ann Morris. Because the Morris is said that earlier. I did say that earlier. He was fifty-one.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah. What was she? Ten.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

And Pat Babe.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

That's my Frank Butcher impression.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

That's very good. He did that at the end of the aisle, just to only squeeze the top of his nose.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Pinched up his nose and went, oh babe, run around now.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Run around. Nah. Woll up. He was fifty-one and Pat was nineteen. Dirty pig. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no nineteen.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Roy was still married to Patricia in nineteen sixty-nine, which is quite a good going for him, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 15:55

That sounds not bad, is it?

unknown 15:56

No.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah. He was driving a park truck when lightning struck two trees on one side of the road, then jumped to the other tree on the opposite side.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

He was driving a parked truck, do you say, or a park truck? A park a park truck. Oh say. Drive a park truck, he'd pretended. Down something down the state just to move in the steering wheel.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

What do you think's more likely that he was driving a park truck or he was driving a parked truck?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Oh I like to sit in the car and pretend I'm driving. Do you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Do you have one of those horns that you can just press and go?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

He was driving a park truck, a park truck. He was driving a truck that belonged to the park.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

That's better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

When lightning struck two trees on one side of the road, then jumped to another tree on the opposite side of the road. Just at the very split second, Roy's truck was perfectly in the middle, with both windows rolled down to relieve the humid, stormy air.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Oh no, so it hit him.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

As a result Roy lost consciousness as the lightning bolt zapped through his cabin, and he very nearly drove his truck off the edge of a cliff.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

When he came to, Roy's eyebrows and eyelashes had been burned from his face. That's a bit of bad luck in here. That very precise second. You're supposed to be safer in it.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

It sounds like this bloke would fall on the barrel of tits and come out sucking his thumb.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

It sounds like it, doesn't it? You're supposed to be safer in a car because it's got rubber tyres on the road, but not for Roy. In 1970, the year of Roy's third strike, he was in his front yard when it happened.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

He was off duty and doing the spot of gardening when lightning hit a nearby transformer and jumped to his shoulder, knocking him down and burning him lightly. I'd have been more impressed that I had a transformer quite near me, to be honest. Yeah, suppose.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Looming over my garden, I'd have been, look at that, it's a bloody great robot. On a separate occasion, Pat was pegging at Washington with Roy's help when there was a sudden storm. She was struck, but in a rare stroke of luck, for him at least, he remained unharmed and she was not seriously hurt.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Did he look at him and go, ha ha ha time you got one?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Miss for that time.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Took a step backwards in a big pile of dogs. Following this event and his own multiple strikes, Roy naturally became extremely cautious. Now this is where you were coming from, Anil, isn't it? You said you weren't going up. Roy and Pat had three children. When storms approached, he would often isolate himself in a different room of the house away from his family to avoid putting them at further risk. He became convinced that the storm clouds would actually follow him and seek him out. So it's starting to affect him a bit. Well he's it I mean a bit mentally as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

If he's wearing that tinfoil hat for a start, in the shape of a captain's hat ship's captain, that that's not going to do any good, is it? I should leave mine off from now on.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Neil?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Who mentioned anything about a tinfoil captain? It's in my head, Steve, and it's in my head. Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah. I'm just going from my personal experience of wearing them.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

On the 16th of April 1972, guess what happened?

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Um he got hit by lightning.

unknown 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Roy Roy says there was a gentle rain but no thunder, until just one sudden massive clap, the loudest thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I could do a loud clap.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

When my ears stopped ringing, I heard something sizzling, and it was my hair on fire the. Flames were up to six inches tall. Just Oh, what's that sizzling? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Oh my hair.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

My hair's on fire.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Very interesting to himself. What's going on in my life?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Luckily, he'd been registering people at the camping station, so he was able to use wet paper towels from a nearby bathroom to smother the flames.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Well, hope he got them registered in first before he put his hair out. Go to the cabin that's blown with his hair on fire. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Excuse me. Excuse me, love. Your hair's on fire. After that strike, Roy confessed to the local press. People avoid me, he said. I was walking with the chief ranger one day and lightning struck way off. And he just said, I'll see you later, Roy, and left me there. There's a restaurant on Loft Mountain, even if it's just a little bit overcast, they won't let me in. I can't blame them. Who wants to be near somebody that all the time is getting hit by lightning? I've tried to lead a good life, he said. I've never been a fearful man, but I have to tell you the truth, when I hear it thunder now, I'm a little shaky. I bet you are. It is. So behind the green door. That's what I was going to say when he says it's a little shaky. There's an old Pan playing hot Behind the Green Door. Green door. Just before it strikes, he said, This is Roy again, okay? I smell a certain smell like sulphur, and my hair bristles all over. That's the signal. Then within two seconds, no longer than three, it hits. Too late for me to hide. I don't believe God is after me. If he was, the first bolt would have been enough to kill me. Best I can figure is that I have some chemical, some mineral in my body that draws lightning. I just wish I knew what. I bet he did.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

I bet he did.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

But it's fun at barbecues.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

You could light the barbecue for him. I'll get that.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah, Roy, come over here. Put your hand on that briquette. August the seventh, nineteen seventy-three, bought the fifth strike. As with his second hit, Roy was in a park truck. Or a truck that belonged to the park, Neil, to avoid any confusion. But this time he saw storm clouds accumulating and was far more aware of his track record and the excruciating pain of being violently electrocuted. So he took the sensible decision to drive away and outrun the storm.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah, good alright. That's what I would have done as well. On my toes. Once he felt he was out of harm's way, Roy stopped to have a look at what had escaped, which was his big mistake.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Because he drove into another one.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

No, he says, I actually saw the lightning shoot out of the clouds this time and it was coming straight at me. Again, white hot lightning set his hair alight, scorched his legs, and even blasted off one of his shoes, leaving the lace still tied. He thought just outrun that. I'm alright now. I was way in the distance. Right. Well, you son off. Roy had to wait until June the 5th, 1976, before nature set his hair on fire again. Must save my fortune's haircuts.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

I just think to myself, I'm not even going to bother growing it back. I'm just going to shave it off.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

This time he was walking along a park trail when he was struck by a sudden bolt of lightning. It was his sixth time in the final straw, and he retired five months later. He did. It was like bloody wrap-up. I've had enough of this. Virginia has a relatively high lightning rate, averaging 35 to 45 thunderstorms per year. Well, that's what I say, wouldn't he move? And Roy's job as part ranger bet he was out there in the wild more often than most. But still, one in two million eight hundred thousand are the odds on being struck just the once. So they'd probably think you were doing it on purpose then, wouldn't they?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Well, it's a what brilliant to try and jump in front of a lightning strike. You've got to be quick to do that.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

When my author was born, my eldest child, she was born on the day that they said that she was due. And after she was born, one of the doctors said, you know, you could have got sixty to one on that. Actually being born on the two date. I thought, well tell me now. Idiot. Yeah, he could have told me that nine months ago, mate. And I'll put a quid on that. So he did it for the second sons two days early, wouldn't he? Typical. So he's retired now, old Roy.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

And you might be thinking to yourself, Oh, good old Roy. That sorted it out. But you may have noticed, if you're paying attention, Neil, that he's been struck by lightning how many times? Seven. How many times has he been struck by lightning at this point? Six. So he got one more strike. It's gonna get him again, isn't it? On June the twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-seven, Roy was out trout fishing when the hair on his arms bristled. Oh. And then wham. Within a second, he'd taken a strike to the head, which burnt his chest and stomach and caused permanent hearing loss in one ear. To top it all off, when Roy came to, he noticed a bear pouring at the trout hanging from the fishing line. This is Roy's fishing line.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, not the bear not the bear's fishing line.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Oh he must have left that a bit further down the the bank. The bear's gone all the way up.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

That bag of started to move now.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

That bag of clothes has started to move now.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

That's that smouldering bag of clothes over there. Has started to sit upright. Some may say that this turn of events was too much for Roy to bear.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Say, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

See what I did?

SPEAKER_02 26:26

I did I did see what he did there, yeah. It's well done.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

He picked up a large branch and ran at the bear, repeatedly bashing it over its head until it ran away. Maybe the bear was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe for Roy it was a kind of catharsis, a vicious, brutal release of over thirty five years of pain, fear, and frustration getting hit by lightning every ten minutes.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

That bloody bear's gonna get it. Care if it rolls me to bits. I've got the thing to lose. Well, they're gonna get struck by bloody lightning again.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Or maybe not, because Roy claimed the bear was just the twenty-seventh it ever needed to hit in his lifetime. It's the twenty-seventh it ever needed to hit. I don't know about you. How many bears have you ever needed to hit, Neil, please?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Um Well I can't think of any really.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

No, I'm on a zero. Yeah. I can't think of anything. So perhaps Roy being struck by lightning and fighting a wild bear was just another Tuesday.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Probably. Either way, it left a few anglers gaubing open mouth.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

I think it's close smacking up with a bear with a pr with a stick. Be like, what's the name Faulty Tails when his car broke down? He'd be like, I've had enough. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

I've had enough now.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Except all this smoke could be coming off his clothes and like you say with his airs all stuck up on end, he's got a charred face.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Blinking with white eyes and his big black charred face. Right, we need to get serious now because it's starting to get sad, okay?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Alright, okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Tragically, you can tell when things start to get sad because they begin with tragically. Roy became a pariah in his own community. Friends and co-workers often avoided him, especially on cloudy days, but then he himself believed that storm clouds were literally hunting him down. So he wasn't doing much to dissuade them. When you consider the fact that about ten per cent of people hit by lightning die, and ninety per cent are left with various degrees of disabilities.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Disabilitators, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I don't know how that works. If ten per cent of people hit by lightning die, so that's dead gone.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

And then ninety per cent are left with various degrees of disabilities.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

That's everybody gets hit by lightning.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah. Well he has done really, because he's lost his hair and he's got scars, he's lost his toe.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yeah, I suppose he lost his big toe, didn't he? And his fish.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

And his fish and his temper.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Roy had remarkable good luck and his bad luck. Not only did he survive each encounter with lightning, but also he never needed to be taken to an emergency room. Roy did with his toe.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

What happened to that transformer? Which one it was.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Went off to fight the Decepticons.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Nevertheless, Roy, his body was covered with scars and his life was marked by loneliness. Poor old boy Roy. He struggled with the emotional weight of his unlucky reputation and being known as a freak.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

In addition, he's just bloody unlucky.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, but you're not people alike. In addition, although each lightning strike was independently verified and documented by medical professionals, some folks just didn't believe him. Because no one ever witnessed the precise moments Roy was struck. Although I don't know how they thought suddenly his hair burst into the room.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

His hair burst off, yeah and he's got scars all over his body, and he's just not doing it himself.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

His toes dropped off.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

He's laying on the side of a river bank with his clothes on fire, he's just showing off that blade.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

The failure of his previous marriages stayed with him, and by 1983, the age gap between a seventy-one-year-old husband and his forty-year-old wife were becoming more obvious. And Pat and Roy were experiencing ongoing marital troubles. And this is where it gets really sad near, okay?

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

On the morning of September the twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-three, in an appropriately named town of Doomes, Virginia, as in Doctor Doomes, Doctor Doom, Virginia, Roy died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He couldn't be doing it anymore. Investigators at the time attributed his death to the pain of a mysterious unrequited love. And the cumulative exhaustion of his difficult personal life.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Because a mysterious unrequited love by the very nature is mysterious. So we don't know who this person was that he's supposedly falling in love with, but do want to know him. We don't know whether that's true, we don't even know why the coroners or whatever. Put it down to that. But either way, it reached the end of his tether and Roy thought, I'm out of here. So yeah, poor old Roy. Last last thing he'd want though, if you think about it, the last thing Roy would want would probably be to die and then get let's set up to heaven. Set on set on a cloud. What an unlucky man.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

It is unlucky man, but you've got to laugh, haven't you? You think bloody hell. I mean sometimes you think to yourself, We got you've had a bad day and you think, oh but if I just think about Roy Sullivan, at least I've been hit by lightning seven times. It could make you make you feel a bit better in yourself, couldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

One of them as well, you just driving along. It went through the car. If it'd have been a second later or a second earlier, it wouldn't have happened. Just that precise moment through the colour.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Do you know what? Sod by blood look. What is going on in this world? Someone don't like me. I've just had enough of this.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Especially when you've woke up and you're teetering on the edge of a cliff and you think I could have run that over. And then you think, oh, oh, that's alright. Take off for that and look in the rear view mirror and notice that your eyelashes and eyebrows have gone. Oh great.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Oh your hair's on fire. You wake up, there's a bloody ten foot grizzly bird, chewing up fish. Well, not a lot of people who still think sod that I'm off each and I'm it. You're having it, pal.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah. Sure, having it. Come here. Poor old Roy. Well, listener, thank you for listening to The Shocking Honorable Mentions. Tragic tale, in the end, although Neil finds it ineriously funny. Poor O'Roy. Anyway, thank you, listener, for listening in to another episode of Honorable Mentions. We will see you next time on Honorable Mentions. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Bye then.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

I'm Mark Hamill. You might remember me as Luke Skywalker from Star Wars and other stuff you wouldn't have seen. Anyhow, you're probably wondering why I'm here at the end of an episode about poor old Roy Sullivan. Is it to do with forced lightning? No. It's because I'm a Virginian. No, I said Virginian. I'm from Virginia. Come on. You think I've never done that? Y'all saw me snog my own sister once. Anyway, there are lots of famous people from Virginia like Sandra Bullock, but she couldn't make it so the boys at honorable mentions asked me to close out this episode. Can you hear me? The door's locked, Mark. As I say, Sandra couldn't make it. And anyway, Steve didn't reference her bullshit and lump rats in her T16, did he? So back off Sandra. You know, I'm a close friend of Steve and the other one, and I know how much they love you, listener. You can keep in touch with Honorable Mentions on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or you can email honorable mentionspod at gmail.com or even message through whatever platform you're using to listen right now. I want you to know that Pepe and the Bandits are a big deal out here in Virginia. But that's nothing compared to the crowd faithful at the Moss I sleep cantina. They wrote and performed the theme tunes, so please give them a listen wherever you stream your music. Honorable Mentions is presented by Steve and Neil Webb and is an Uncover Brothers production. Each episode is researched by Stephen Webb and contains 100% unscripted nonsense. Now I'm gonna try an old Jedi mind trick on your ass. Hold still. You will subscribe, like, and share. And you will leave a five-star review. Or else, I'm gonna tell my dad's. I find a lack of faith to do.