I Cheated Death Without Realizing It, So Here’s a Warning

A woman took a seemingly harmless selfie on her morning walk, but when she posted it online later that day people told her she had been “close to death.” Now, she wants to warn others of the danger she faced without knowing it.

Natalie Stevens, from Jersey an island in the UK, took to Facebook to share a selfie that showed her hair standing up. In the caption, she described feeling “a very tingly feeling in [her] head and forehead” and her “hair going static for around 10 to 15 minutes” while she was out walking her dog at 7:30 AM. She also mentioned she “could hear thunder on the French coast.”

Her intention was to share a fun incident, as she joked about it in the comments. “I did start to get a little nervous and headed higher up the beach,” she said. “Goodness knows what it would have looked like if I hadn’t had my hair tied back! It was a really weird sensation.”

However, people in the comment section quickly let her know she shouldn’t be making light of the situation, as it could have ended badly. “You were about 2 minutes away from dying or being severely hurt,” one user wrote. The serious remark was backed up by other people and specialists.

“An electric charge builds up as part of a ‘positive lightning strike.’ The charge is what makes your hair stand up. You may not think you’re in trouble if the storm looks to still be off in the distance. But that electric charge is a sure sign that you should get inside as quickly as possible,” another user explained, with her comment being backed up by experts at the US National Weather Service.

“If your hair stands on end, lightning is about to strike you. Drop to your knees and bend forward, but don’t lie flat on the ground. Wet ground is a good conductor of electricity,” the team of specialists said. “It is also recommended you get far away from the beach when storms roll in.”

Weather phenomena happen everywhere, even on other planets. NASA’s Juno mission captured a vortex featuring green lighting on Jupiter from outer space. The image stunned many and went viral.