Objectives: To find out as nearly as possible how many lightning deaths and casualties occur in Colorado. At the time of an earlier study on Colorado lightning deaths and casualties, emergency room lightning visits were not available. Now that emergency room data are available for analysis, we believe we are better able to approach the actual numbers of lightning casualties.
Background: The main source of data on the number of lightning casualties in the United States is National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Storm Data. NOAA's data are based largely on newspaper clippings. Most researchers have concluded that these data underreport the actual numbers of deaths and injuries. A study of Colorado lightning casualties for the years 1988 to 1991 revealed that Storm Data underreported deaths by 28% and injuries by at least 42%. That study utilized data from the Colorado Health Department (CHD) death certificates and the Colorado Health and Hospital Association (CHA) records on inpatients with lightning injuries.
Methods: Data for the years 1993 through 1995 were obtained from the following sources: CHD death certificates; CHA inpatient database; Colorado hospital emergency room databases and records. These data were compared with data for the same period from Storm Data and from newspaper clippings.
Results: The number of lightning casulaties for the years 1993 through 1995 from CHA were 100 (29 hospital patients and 71 emergency room visits). The numbers of deaths for the same period were 9 (confirmed by both CHA and CHD data). These numbers are significantly larger than numbers found in Storm Data (50 injuries and 8 deaths) and from newspaper clippings (53 injuries and 7 deaths).
Conclusions: We at the Centura Health Lightning Data Center have analyzed several databases in an attempt to learn how many people are injured or killed by lightning in Colorado. Until recently, the only source for the numbers of lightning casualties was NOAA's Storm Data. Lightning researchers (medical and meteorological) have utilized Storm Data believing the numbers were underreported. In an earlier study where emergency room numbers were not available, Storm Data was found to underreport injuries by 42% and deaths by 28%. In this study we were able to obtain for the first time data on may Colorado emergency room patients, as well as inpatients and deaths. Not surprisingly, the numbers of lightning injuries are underreported by 100% (50 out of 100); the number of deaths by 11% (1 out of 9).