Two California hunters were caught in a storm in 1901 when a flash of lightning turned their shotguns into explosives.
R. Cutlar and E. McClarnon were carrying double-barreled guns when a blinding strike knocked both men violently to the ground. When they recovered, they discovered that the barrels of both shotguns had split open and every cartridge had discharged.
Yet neither man had been shot.
The hunters believed the lightning had struck their weapons directly and that the wooden gun stocks, along with their oilskin clothing, may have helped save their lives.
Their account was strange enough to become one of the storm’s most talked-about stories.
Hunters’ Guns Exploded by Lightning in a Storm
SAN RAFAEL, California. — The storm of this morning in Marin County will be remembered not so much on account of the damage it did as by reason of the weird and startling stories told of the wind’s freaks.
R. Cutlar, proprietor of the Tamalpais Villa, near Kent Station, and E. McClarnon, his employee, relate an astonishing story of their experience with the lightning.
The men were out hunting and each carried a double-barreled shotgun, pointed downward, in the hollow of his arm. Suddenly there was a crash of thunder, followed by a blinding flash of lightning, and both men were thrown violently to the ground.
McClarnon was the first to regain his feet, and seeing his companion lying unconscious, supposed that the charge from his gun had shot him. Bending over his friend he begged the latter to say if he was shot, but it was some time before Cutlar was able to answer.
According to the story of the hunters, their escape was marvelous. Both shotguns, the men relate, were split wide open the entire length of their barrels. Both cartridges in each gun were discharged, but the cap of neither, it is averred, showed an indentation.
The guns, the hunters declare, were struck by lightning and the men believe they owe their narrow escape entirely to the fact that in protecting their weapons from the rain their hands grasped only the wooden stocks of the weapons.
Both men were dressed in oilskins and their theory is that this probably threw off the electric shock.
Source: The Silver Star. Dolores, Colo. March 1, 1901.
