Every time I think I’ve been unlucky for whatever reason I remember Roy Sullivan and it puts things in perspective.

Roy, a park ranger from Virginia, was struck by lightning in April 1942. The odds of this are one in 700,000. (1/9)

That’s a scorch mark on his hat

Anywho, 27 years later (in July 1969), Roy was struck by lightning again while driving his car. Normally a car would act as a Faraday cage but in this case the lightning bounced off a tree and through an open window. How’s your luck? (2/9)

Not great actually because exactly one year later Roy was struck again after lightning ricocheted off a power transformer and hit him while he was in his garden. He survived again. (3/9)

Two lightning-free years followed before Roy was struck a fourth time.

This time he was inside a ranger hut but the strike somehow got in set his hair on fire.

Apparently, around this time Roy began to think he was possibly cursed. Understandably because... (4/9)

Roy was struck for a fifth time the very next year while caught out in a storm.

The strike set fire to his head. He grabbed a can of water from his truck and put out the flames. He must’ve thought how lucky he was to have the water handy. (5/9)

Roy’s luck took a turn for the worse three years later in June 1976 when, would you believe it, he was struck by lightning.

His hair, remarkably he still had some, caught fire.
(6/9)

The very next summer, Roy was out fishing - one might enquire what anyone struck by lightning six times was doing outside with a metal rod - and was unfortunately...

...struck by lightning.

On the way back to his car he was attacked by a bear.

(7/9)

Roy died in 1983, aged 71, after a bullet passed through his brain.

He administered the bullet himself, apparently because of an unrequited love (though it should be noted he was in bed with his wife at the time).

No bears were involved. (8/9)

And the chances of getting struck by lightning seven times?

4.15 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

(FIN)