How many strikes would that take?

I can't say for sure in this instance since normally the voltage dissipates fairly quick. It could be step voltage potential (aka Earth potential rise see link below) But a voltage differential across a foot or two can be pretty large. This can happen from a lightning strike near a person and the voltage differential shows up between a persons legs. In 4 legged animal the difference in voltage maybe between the hind and front legs going through the chest. Think of it this way you may have 10,000 volts at one leg but due to the resistance of the soil have 9,000 volts on the other leg. In this case it could be rain saturated ground, the mix of soil and rocks where the right combination to allow the voltage to travel a pretty good distance.


Here is a pdf link explaining it better then I have.

http://www.surgetek.co.za/more/step_and_touch_potentials.pdf


Edit: Btw it's amperage that kills. Even low voltage differences can have enough amperage to kill going through the chest area.

Exactly right.

I used to help the electrical's on filmsets when I worked as a P.A. They would drill that into me every single day. You could have 50,000 volts but if it's 1/2 an amp, you will be okay, but if you have 1000 volts and 10 amps, you will get a big hurt coming your way.

That could easily be lethal.

then the halfwit electricians I was working with didn't know shit. that's terrifying.

Said that ground currents, created by the lightning strike could actually cause damage for a fair distance. Reindeer standing close together would reinforce that. I am reminded of the geophysical exploration technique known as induced polarization, which involves injecting current into the Earth and measuring the decay of the resulting ground currents.

The current from a strike could flow from animal to animal.

It was probably a combination of some animals being close, touching and step potential.

So many animals killed from one storm.

This story sounds suspiciously familiar. Was it reindeer last time? Or gazelle? Can't quite remember.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

She comes from the flat farming communities of Northwestern Germany, and she said the three most common causes of death in her area were car crashes (many of them drive while drunk), lung cancer (almost all of them smoke) and lightning strikes, which killed more than a few of her neighbors who didn't take the danger seriously.

It is not a good idea to go outside and reset a breaker at your house during a lightning storm. Lightning can strike anywhere from a decent distance away from your house on the neutral of your power line all the way to your house and have a step potential issue if you are near the breaker panel.

.. 17,000 lightning strikes in Europe.

When reached for comment, Rudolf said only, "Forever alone."

Thanks, Obama.