Boy, 13, struck by lightning -- on Friday the 13th

[cat9tails]

Boy, 13, struck by lightning -- on Friday the 13th
LONDON (AFP) – Friday the 13th proved suitably unlucky for one 13 year-old boy who was struck by lightning before being taken to hospital -- at 13:13 on the dreaded date.

The boy, who has not been named, was treated for a minor burn after being hit along with two others at an air show in Suffolk, eastern England, a spokeswoman said.
More at the link above.

[Earl]

Now that is spooky.

[mimseycal]

If that is how you want to view it ...

[timey]

Precisely. Believe it or not, the chances of that happening at some point in all of time are not that remote. And 99.9% of people being struck by lightning happens on other days of the year and at other times. We only think this is spooky because that's what we are looking for.

[Alpha]

All the 13's? It's weird enough.

[timey]

It's just a coincidence.

If you could check back through your life the chance is you would find something bad that happened on ONE occasion of all the 13s, but most of them wouldn't have, and yet that one occasion would be enough for people to say that it is "proof" that the number 13 is unlucky. And there's bound to have been an occasion when someone was struck by lightning on, say, all the 15s, but we don't say that's spooky.

[Earl]

Precisely. Believe it or not, the chances of that happening at some point in all of time are not that remote. And 99.9% of people being struck by lightning happens on other days of the year and at other times. We only think this is spooky because that's what we are looking for.

Come on, how can the chance not be remote? I only thought it was spooky because the chance is very remote.I understand that the chance of it happening exists, across the whole of time there is a possibility for lots of strange coincidences, but that doesn't mean it's not remote. If you include the term "all of time" you're covering a pretty wide area.

[Victor29]

"Million to one chances," said Granny Wetherwax "crop up nine times out of ten"...'Equal Rites'...Terry Pratchett.

[timey]

Come on, how can the chance not be remote? I only thought it was spooky because the chance is very remote.I understand that the chance of it happening exists, across the whole of time there is a possibility for lots of strange coincidences, but that doesn't mean it's not remote. If you include the term "all of time" you're covering a pretty wide area.

That's the point though. Looking at this as one incident it seems spooky, but only because we think 13 ius a special number. If you look at all of the possibilities of people being struck by lightning (which is a surprisingly high number, more than we think) amongst all the billions of people in the world, there is actually bound to be one at 13:13 on a Friday the 13th at some point. To pick that one incident and say it is proof of a superstition is silly, when most of them (and I mean millions to one) happen at other times and no-one says anything about those. Statistically the chances of being hit by lightning are related to where you are whether there is a thunderstorm, not what day and time it is. People just don't understand probability.

[Earl]

I understand probability, but I don't like it.

Statistics are shit, you can read them in too many different ways. The probability of getting struck by lightening in the US is around 750,000 to one. But that goes off past statistics, there's no way of working out the 'chance' of being struck as it isn't down to chance it's down to a pretty complex number of circumstances. So when you consider that it makes the chances even slimmer.

You need to have all the right circumstances, at a precise moment in time happening to a person that precise age. It's not that 13 is a special number. if it happened to a 10 year old at 10:10 on the tenth of October it would still be pretty remarkable.

I suppose "spooky" was the wrong word, but it's still very bizarre.