Pro Gamer Struck By Lightning During Live Stream
Believe it or not, the odds you'll be struck by lightning sometime in your life aren't all that crazy. Winning the lottery? Those are odds you'll probably never overcome. According to Wonderopolis, you can peg a lottery win at one in almost 14 million. National Geographic, however, places the odds of a lightning strike during the course of your life at one in 3,000.
Basically, a lightning strike is far more likely to happen. Rocket League pro Karma learned that the hard way this past weekend while broadcasting on Twitch.
During Karma's stream, a large boom could be heard, followed almost immediately by Karma herself yelling out in pain. From the sounds of it, Karma then cried — presumably as her pain became more pronounced and she got a sense of what just happened. It's definitely a disturbing few moments to take in, so bear that in mind before you watch the clip.
Karma soon shared an update on Twitter, writing, "Actually think I just got struck by lightening [sic] thru my controller [...] wtf." So it seems lightning was indeed to blame for what went down. When it struck the home, it likely traveled through Karma's PC and made its way through the controller she was using. The end result was not only a busted controller, but according to Karma, burned hands.
The whole ordeal was, as the streamer put it later on, "unlucky."
Fortunately, Karma's injuries don't appear to be too serious and she seems to be doing okay. She's issued some replies on Twitter since reporting the incident, and even let one follower know it "takes more than a lightening [sic] strike to knock me down." So huge props go to Karma for not letting Mother Nature get the better of her.
Karma's fans deserve some credit for showing concern, as well. Many wrote to the streamer on Twitter with hopes that she was okay. And some just expressed complete surprise that something like this could happen.
And yes, some people did make jokes about the whole thing. One asked Karma if she was using Sony's DualShock controller. Another likened her experience to "a superhero origin story." While these may seem like questionable responses given the very real pain Karma endured, who knows — maybe she appreciates the humor. Laughter isn't always the best medicine, but when one is zapped by Earth itself, perhaps some jokes are in line with the quirkiness of it all.
With this happening to Karma, you might be wondering — have other gamers ever been struck by lightning? Have others gone through a similar experience? While there aren't many on-the-record accounts similar to Karma's, we did manage to surface a Kotaku story from 2010 that involved Jeff Hickman, who was then a producer at BioWare Mythic.
As Hickman recounted, his home was struck by lightning during the spring. The strike had a pretty devastating impact on not only the electronics in his home, but also the people in it.
"The storm's coming through. It's crazy," Hickman told Kotaku. "And all of a sudden we get, just like the loudest bang with the biggest brightest light that you've ever seen. And everything in the house goes dead. Everything turns black."
Hickman reported that a lot of his equipment was wiped out by the strike. That included PCs, game consoles, DVD players, and more.
But a few of Hickman's children were also shocked by the lightning strike. One of his daughters, who was wearing a retainer, may very well have had lightning in her mouth at one point. That caused blisters to form on her tongue. His son was shocked by his cell phone, which was plugged into the wall at the time.
"It scared the hell out of us. The people damage scared us," Hickman said.
Judging by that story, it seems like Karma may have gotten through her experience with less overall damage, which is something to be thankful for. Her hands took some punishment, which is pretty unfortunate. And her controller is done for, as she reported. But she made no mention of any other injuries, and she didn't let on that her PC or her other electronics were impacted in any way. So that's something good to take away from her story.
Hopefully Karma can make a full recovery and get back to streaming again soon. While normal sports have mostly been put on hold in the past few months, esports have still been going strong. Karma undoubtedly has many fans who'd love to see her back on the Rocket League pitch. And if Karma is as tough as her response to being struck by lightning was, she no doubt wants to get back to playing, as well.