Chances of being struck this month and next are higher than usual
Carolyn Quek, Straits Times 27 Oct 09;
IT IS lightning season.
These bolts of electricity are splitting the skies every other day, compared with about once a week in the off season.
This means the chances of people being struck this month and the next are higher than usual - and Singapore already sees one of the highest rates of lightning activity in the world.
Figures from the National Environment Agency (NEA) show 0.35 death recorded for every one million people here between 2000 and 2003, higher than Britain's 0.2 but lower than the United States' 0.6 figure.
Besides this month and the next, lightning and thunderstorms are also prevalent in April and May, with at least 18 thundery days each month.
But deaths here are higher in April and November, notes the NEA. Latest figures are not available.
Golfer Soh Lye Huat, a 57-year-old garment company owner, is the latest person to be struck by lightning here; he was wrapping up an 18-hole game at the Tanah Merah Country Club on Sunday when he was hit.
Mr Soh is in a coma in hospital. His heart stopped after he was struck, but a pulse returned just as he reached the hospital, said a Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman.
Mr Soh's national serviceman son Jeffrey, 22, said: 'He's not conscious yet, but we're hoping for the best.'
His family members, including his mother and sister, are keeping vigil at the hospital.
Tanah Merah Country Club general manager Roy Higgs said the Meteorological Services usually alerts the club 30 to 60 minutes in advance of lightning activity, which gives the club time to get its golfers off the greens.
The NEA said that data gathered by the Met Services at 9am on Sunday indicated that thunderstorms would occur in western and southern Singapore in the late morning and early afternoon that day.
It was only at 10.10am that the weatherman spotted a thunderstorm brewing in the Tanah Merah area in the east, accompanied by lightning. It sent a text message five minutes later to the club.
But it was by then too late for Mr Soh.
Professor Liew Ah Choy of the National University of Singapore's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department explained that the Met Services gathers data on lightning activity in two ways, both of which involve the use of radar.
One method uses a weather radar, which tracks cloud formation and density. The data gathered is studied, after which an assessment is made on the likelihood of lightning activity.
The other method uses radar to detect and track lightning strikes.
Neither system is foolproof, he said.
'It's just like predicting whether it will rain tomorrow,' he said.
Lightning mostly strikes the ground harmlessly, but if it hits humans, it can kill with an average of 200,000 amps of electricity - enough to power half a million 100-watt light bulbs.
Direct hits are usually fatal. The sheer force of electricity going through the body disrupts the heart's rhythm or stops it completely.
Burns are typical injuries.
In an indirect hit or 'side flash', lightning hits the person standing near the point where the current enters the ground, spreads and then dissipates.
'So if you are in the path of the spread of voltages, you will get a voltage difference across your legs and become a conductor for the current,' said Prof Liew.
Emergency room doctor Malcolm Mahadevan, who has seen his share of those struck by lightning in his 20 years of practice, said those who make it to hospital are unlikely to have taken a direct strike.
The senior consultant at the National University Hospital said: 'Someone who's been struck by lightning may appear lifeless but may actually - with quick and early resuscitation - be brought back to life.'
Tips on avoiding lightning strikes
# Seek shelter in a building or car.
# If you are in an open area, take cover in a low-lying area such as a ravine or under a thick growth of small trees in a forest.
# Head for shore if you are in open water.
# Do not ride on a bicycle, motorcycle or golf cart.
# If you are on a golf course and there are no shelters nearby, put down your clubs, take off your spiked shoes and crouch into a ball on the ground.
# Do not use the telephone, electric and electronic equipment.
# Do not stand under tall trees.
# Keep away from wire fences or metal objects.
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Golfer in coma after being struck by lightning
Amelia Tan, Straits Times 26 Oct 09;
A GOLFER was struck by lightning at the Tanah Merah Country Club yesterday morning, just as he neared the end of an 18-hole game.
The skies had only just turned a little dark and the club had contacted the Meteorological Services to check whether lightning was likely when the 57-year-old was hit.
Mr Soh Lye Huat, a garment company owner, is now in a coma in intensive care at Changi General Hospital.
His son Jeffrey, a 22-year-old national serviceman, said his dad played golf at the Changi Coast Road course once a week with a regular group of three friends and that he was with them yesterday.
Tanah Merah Country Club general manager Roy Higgs said the Met Services usually sends a text message to the on-duty club employee when possible lightning activity is brewing.
The message is usually sent from half an hour to an hour before the club sounds its sirens and makes an announcement over its public address system for all players to clear the greens.
Marshalls also go on patrol to ensure that players leave the course; they generally have to stay off it for 45 minutes.
Mr Higgs said that by the time the Met Services sent the text message at about 10.15am yesterday - after club employees had called it about some dark clouds - the accident had already happened.
The text message instructed the club to clear players off the courses between 10.30am and 11.15am.
When asked, a National Environment Agency spokesman said the Met Services had detected a localised thunderstorm near the Tanah Merah area only at 10.10am and had assessed that lightning would likely hit the area. It sent out a lightning alert five minutes after this.
Data gathered at 9am had indicated that thunderstorms would occur only in western and southern Singapore, not the east, later in the morning and early afternoon.
After Mr Soh was struck, one of his friends, helped by two marshalls, gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before the ambulance came, said Mr Higgs.
A Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman said that when paramedics arrived, Mr Soh was unconscious.
Mr Higgs explained that country clubs had two ways of getting information on possible lighting activity: They either install their own lightning detection equipment or, like Tanah Merah Country Club, get updates from the Met Services.
Mr Higgs said this was the first time someone had been struck by lightning at its Changi Coast Road course since the club opened in 1982; its other course in Tampines, so far free of lightning mishaps, opened in the mid-1980s.
The younger Mr Soh said: 'My dad is stable, but we are still very worried. We are trying to get more information to find out what happened.'
The family, including his mother and 20-year-old undergraduate sister, is keeping vigil.
