The weather airman

Photo By Senior Master Sgt. George Thompson | Senior Airman Erik White, 386th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron, performs his duty as a weather forecaster next to the wings newly installed portable Doppler radar at the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, Southwest Asia, May 4, 2013. White earned the call sign "Sparky" after he was struck by lightning in 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Austin Knox)  

(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)

05.13.2013

Story by Senior Master Sgt. George Thompson 

386th Air Expeditionary Wing

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION - "As a weather guy, you're not 100 percent and the guys that say they are, are wrong," Senior Airman Erik White said.

White, 386th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron, weather journeyman, native of Bloomfield, Ky., joined the Air Force fresh out of high school looking for a better life and to make something of himself.

"I had gotten to the point where nothing was working out," said White, deployed from Robins Air Force Base, Ga. "I had done the whole construction bit and odds and end jobs and realized the Air Force was a good option."

After graduating from basic training, White spent the next eight months at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., learning about weather.

"Weather is interesting, it's 90 percent boring and 10 percent all craziness," he said. "There are two aspects of our job, the flying world and the personnel and resource protection aspect."

The flying aspect of White's job provides pilots and crews the information necessary to complete their mission.

"We provide flight weather briefs and tell them about any hazards they may encounter en route," he said.

The other aspect of White's job aims to protect personnel and the resources on the base.

"We provide the 'lightning within five' warnings that you hear across the loud speaker to keep people safe," he said. "We also issue certain warnings to help the base commanders make preventative actions like tying down aircraft or to move aircraft."

Although White may issue "lighting within five" warnings to keep the base populace safe, he will never forget the day he failed to heed his own advice.

"I was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, [La.,] and we had a pretty nasty thunderstorm coming across the area and I decided to do some amateur photography of the storm," he said. "I had my camera on my back tapping this thunderstorm and I ended up getting struck by lightning."

White was extremely lucky to survive his lightning strike with only second and third-degree burns from his knee down to his foot.

According to the National Weather Service, there have been 9,235 lightning fatalities in the U.S. since the agency started tracking fatalities in 1940.

"It gave me a strong understanding of how powerful and how dangerous weather can be," he said. "I always tell people, of all of our 'big boy warnings' like tornadoes, damaging winds and hail, I think 'lightening within five' is the most important because lightening kills more people every year."

White's recovery included more than two months of convalescent leave, an early retirement to his weather photography career and he still feels the effects of that electrifying day.

"I have some nerve damage in my leg and it feels like that tingling feeling when your foot falls asleep," he said. "It was about a year and a half before I fully got back to normal, but I can tell you, it was a shocking experience."

Unlike Sean Patrick Flanery's character in the movie Powder, White did not gain extraordinary intelligence after his lightning strike, but he admits he did get a little wiser.

"I get a little post-traumatic stress when I hear thunder boom," he said. "When the thunder roars, I go indoors."

• Date Taken: 05.13.2013
• Date Posted: 05.13.2013 05:34
• Story ID: 106833
• Location: (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)
• Hometown: BLOOMFIELD, KY, US