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Meet the man struck by lightning '11 times'

Melvin Roberts has a collection of broken watches, all showing the exact times he was struck by lightning.

He claims he has been struck 11 times and scientists say it is impossible — but there is a lot they still don't understand about this astonishingly powerful natural phenomenon.

Melvin and wife Martha say lightning just comes looking for him.

Melvin Roberts
Melvin Roberts

"It’s like it hunts me. Like it‘s stalking me," Melvin told reporter Denham Hitchcock, in an eye-opening special, examining the rapidly increasing incidence of lightning and the threat it poses to our everyday lives.

The 62-year-old from South Carolina says he was struck by lightning while driving a bulldozer, twice while mowing the lawn and even once while standing on the front porch.

While some are skeptical, his medical records show repeated injuries consistent with being struck by lightning.

The broken watches show the exact times he has been struck
The broken watches show the exact times he has been struck

"Yeah, it was a bad shock. You can’t taste anything for days, and days, ringing in my ears," he says in the interview.

"I could eat possum stew or monkey brains and it would taste like sulphur, you know."

There are up to a billion volts in each lightning strike, four times hotter than the surface of the sun, and lightning expert Martin Uman says that's why many people don’t survive it.

Melvin says lightning follows him wherever he goes
Melvin says lightning follows him wherever he goes

"What happens is you have a current driven through your body and across the surface of your skin so get your skin burned.

“There are characteristic patterns across a skin, arborescent patterns, nerves can be damaged because the current flows through the nerves and the heart can be stopped," Professor Uman said.

"I think directly being struck 11 times is impossible."


But the expert also says lightning strikes are becoming more frequent as the world warms and that is posing enormous challenges to the way we live, travel and respond to weather.

"It means there’s going to be lots more wildfires … and there’s going to be a lot more house fires, there’s going to be more damage," he said.

"There will be more people killed."

Scientists are desperate to know more about lightning, predict where it will strike and even how to control it.

To understand more about this rapidly developing and deadly spectacle Denham Hitchcock headed to the lightning capital of the world, a lake deep in the jungle of Venezuela where constant storms unleash as many as 40,000 bolts every day.

It’s a glimpse at life under an epic and dangerous sky show that may soon become more common around the world.

Watch the full story on Sunday Night August 30 at 7PM.