A bolt of lightning striking a person usually causes very serious injury or death.

Lightning strikes can produce severe injuries, and have a mortality rate of between 10% and 30%, with up to 80% of survivors sustaining long-term injuries.[3] These severe injuries are not usually caused by thermal burns, since the current is too brief to greatly heat up tissues; [citation needed] instead, nerves and muscles may be directly damaged by the high voltage producing holes in their cell membranes, a process called electroporation. [citation needed]

In a direct strike, the electrical currents in the flash channel pass directly through the victim. The relatively high voltage drop around poorer electrical conductors (such as a human being), causes the surrounding air to ionize and break down, and the external flashover diverts most of the main discharge current so that it passes "around" the body, reducing injury.