‘Mate, we cheated death’: Group of men are lucky to be alive after they turned a fishing rod into a lightning rod to absorb the power of a ferocious storm on the open ocean
- Fishermen lucky to be alive after fishing rod on their boat was struck by lightning
- The trio left from Broome’s coast in Western Australia’s north on Saturday
- They were in a six metre aluminum boat and watched the storm develop
- While they were out at sea, the storm gained momentum and traveled to them
- They were surrounded by lightning with one striking the rod attached to the boat
A group of fishermen are lucky to be alive after a fishing rod attached to their boat was struck by lightning while they were out at sea.
Kim Ford and his two friends departed from Broome’s coast in Western Australia’s north on Saturday morning in a six-metre aluminum boat.
The trio were excited to go fishing after days of bad weather, but as they sat out at sea they noticed a storm was developing on the mainland.
Mr Ford told the ABC that they had seen a small weather system brewing on the coast but decided to wait for the storm to pass.
Kim Ford and his two friends departed from Broome’s coast in Western Australia’s north on Saturday morning in a six metre aluminum boat (pictured)
Thinking it would pass between 20 to 30 minutes, but it didn’t.
The group began to worry when they could no longer see as the storm became so ferocious and the lightning surrounded the group.
The storm was so strong the fishermen couldn’t get their lifejackets out of storage.
Mr Ford and his friends decided to keep a fishing rod in its holder in the hopes it would be struck by lightning rather than the boat.
The lightning inched closer to them – so close they could feel the power of each strike.
‘You can feel the force of them when they’re cracking and the noise but when that one hit so close it was deafening,’ Mr Ford said.
The lightning struck the tip of the rod, traveled down the metal and blew the bottom of the reel apart – less than a metre away from Mr Ford.
He immediately smelt burning metal and had to calm himself down.
‘I sort of closed my eyes, tried to calm a little bit, then another one crashed near us which the other two saw. They said that made the water turn red. It was like a big, big glow of red all around,’ Mr Ford said.
Mr Ford and his friends decided to keep a fishing rod (pictured after the lightning hit) in its holder in the hopes it would be struck by lightning rather than the boat
The group decided to risk it and attempt to complete the journey back to shore through the lightning storm.
Mr Ford said waves were so big the boat was being thrown around and the GPS kept turning off.
Luckily, the trio managed to slowly make it back to the mainland and had a quick drink to celebrate making it out alive.
‘We came straight home and had a quick drink, just a skull in a shot glass each and said, “mate, we cheated death”,’ Mr Ford said.
Mr Ford said they’d noticed a small weather system brewing on the coast but decided to wait for the storm (pictured)to pass
Broome Volunteer Sea Rescue posted to Facebook explaining they had a busy morning monitoring four boats who went out in the storm.
‘Broome sea rescue had a busy morning monitoring 4 vessels that ventured out on what turned out to be a stormy morning with a number of storm cells n (sic) lightning moving across the ocean,’ the post read.
‘One vessel with 3 POB’s was struck by lightning melting a fishing rod.
‘Fortunately no injuries, and a lucky escape which in a confined space would have been quite scary. Glad to see you guys returned OK (sic).’