The average person has a 1 in 15,300 chance of being struck by lightning in their lifetime.
I don’t know if those same odds transfer to cows, but I do know that (if I counted correctly) this particular cow had about a 1 in 50 chance considering all of the other cows standing around it.
This security footage from a gas station across the street from the pasturing cows caught the rare occurrence as it happened. It appears that storms seem to be rolling through the area while the cows just go about their grazing.
It’s all business as usual over at the gas station too. People are pulling in and out of the station, unaware of what is about to unfold across the street.
If the time is right on the security camera, it all happened early in the morning, just after 7:30 a.m.
Arrows overlayed on the clip help point out which cow unfortunately meets its demise (I’m assuming).
There are rare occurrences where people or animals get struck by lightning and survive, but the way this one drops after the strike, I don’t have a good gut feeling that it made it through.
Around 20 seconds into the video, the cow gets absolutely zapped and it understandably scares the hell out of all the other grazing animals.
It’s somewhat of a mixed reaction from the herd of cows, with some fleeing the area while other stand around and look as if they are saying “what the hell just happened?”
You know that strike had to be loud too. If you’ve ever been close to a lightning strike, you know it has the ability to shake houses and scare the everliving daylights out of pets.
Some might watch the video and say:
“That’s unfortunate, but at least the cow died doing what it loved: chowing on grass.”
I’ve always hated the phrase “well at least they died doing what they loved.” I personally think it’s thrown around way too often. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I doubt that the cow loved getting electrocuted to death.
And I know you are thinking it because I am too. I unfortunately don’t know if the area smelled like a cooked burger or steak after the cow was struck by lightning.
I’d like to think that the smell that permeated over to the gas station was similar to that of the smell that travels from someone’s barbecue grill in the neighborhood, making you say:
“Man, whatever Jeff is grilling up over there smells great.”
Anyways, take a look at the shocking (too easy of a joke) video below:
