Surviving two lightning strikes in childhood, a traumatized Becca Burke becomes isolated from her disbelieving family members and bonds with Buckley Pitank, who grieves the loss of the mother who died from a lightning strike.

Leading forensic pathologists from around the world synthesize the practical advances in a variety of important subspecialties of forensic pathology and demonstrate how the latest medical and scientific progress is being applied to solve current problems of high interest to forensic pathologists today. The authors offer cutting-edge insights into death from environmental conditions (lightning and elder abuse), homicide by sharp force, death from natural causes (asthma, Marfan syndrome, and peliosis of the liver and spleen), and pathology of human endothelium in septic organ failure. Additional chapters address special aspects of crime scene interpretation and behavioral analysis, neogenesis of ethanol and fusel oils in putrefying blood, agrochemical poisoning, imaging techniques in forensic pathology, and fixation techniques for organs and parenchymal structures. A comprehensive, up-to-date review of the international literature is given for each chapter.

Mountain emergency medicine has seen exponential development due to the ever increasing number of people who hike or trek as well as practice extreme sports. Emergency physicians and nurses need to be equipped with the necessary training to be able to manage “on the field” accidents and sicknesses as well as their own physical security. Theoretical knowledge is generally of high level but practical expertise is dangerously lacking in many operators. Furthermore, treatment modalities on the field have not been completely codified and are not supported by internationally-accepted guidelines. This book is the first to offer a complete and thorough approach to this field of Emergency Medicine based on the latest research findings.

A powerful chronicle of a wounded woman’s exploration of nature and self After nature writer Gretel Ehrlich was struck by lightning near her Wyoming ranch and almost died, she embarked on a painstaking and visionary journey back to the land of the living. With the help of an extraordinary cardiologist and the companionship of her beloved dog Sam, she avidly explores the natural and spiritual world to make sense of what happened to her. We follow as she combs every inch of her new home on the California coast, attends a convention of lightning-strike victims, and goes on a seal watch in Alaska. Ehrlich then turns her focus inward, exploring the tiny but equally fascinating ecosystem of the human heart, and culminated in a stunningly beautiful description of open-heart surgery.

Lightning Injuries: Electrical, Medical, and Legal Aspects presents a thorough examination of injuries inflicted by lightning strikes. The expertise of acknowledged world authorities from three continents have been brought together to create this truly remarkable volume. Lightning Injuries: Electrical, Medical, and Legal Aspects begins with a short historical review featuring a discussion of the physics of lightning phenomena and the aspects of electrical circuit theory. This review provides the background for following chapters, which address topics such as the epidemiology of lightning injury, the pathogenesis of the features of lightning injury, the clinical aspects of managing patients with lightning injury, and lightning injury mediated by communications systems (including telephones). The book also describes the problem of finding protection against lightning strikes and the issues that arise in legal liability as a result of lightning strikes. The book is written for a diverse audience and includes material that makes it appropriate for all professionals in medical, legal, and technical fields. Never before has such a comprehensive collation of related facets of lightning injury been published within a single volume.

This "utterly spectacular" book weighs the impact modern medical technology has had on the author's life against the social and environmental costs inevitably incurred by the mining that makes such innovation possible (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises). What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator. In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator freshly wired into her heart, she becomes consumed with questions about the supply chain that allows such an ostensibly miraculous device to exist. So she sets out to trace its materials back to their roots. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural relationship to medical technology, raising important questions about our obligations to one another, and the cost of saving one life.

Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal follows the story of outcast high school senior Carson Phillips who blackmails the most popular students in his school into contributing to his literary journal to bolster his college application; his goal in life is to get into Northwestern and eventually become the editor of The New Yorker. At once laugh-out-loud funny, deliciously dark, and remarkably smart, Struck By Lightning unearths the dirt that lies just below the surface of high school. The film Stuck By Lightning features Colfer's own original screenplay. Colfer also stars in the film alongside Allison Janney, Christina Hendricks, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Hyland, and Polly Bergen.