Alfred Patton
Born
Oct. 10, 1834
KILLED BY
LIGHTNING
Died
July 13, 1856
Aged 21 years
While volunteering in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana, I came across a gravestone that was broken into two pieces and partially buried. When I inspected the top part of the tablet, I noticed the inscription, “KILLED BY LIGHTNING.”
Nearly everyone has used the expression, “you are more likely to get hit by lightning,” to explain how rare something might be. According to the Centers for Disease Control, your odds of being struck in any given year are less than one in 1.6 million. However, your lifetime risk is only about one in 20,000. Oddly enough, males are four times more likely than females to be struck.
Unfortunately, Alfred Patton didn’t beat the odds.
According to the experts, July and August are peak months for lightning strikes—and two out of three happen between noon and 6 pm. Two-thirds of all deaths are of people engaging in leisure activities like fishing, boating, and soccer.
So be careful out there!
Gravely Speaking 
Lightning strikes happened far too often! In fact, I cover examples of these tragedies in the Chapter entitled “When Lightning Strikes” in my new book “Stories from Maine Cemeteries – Lives Cut Short” (History Press, 2026). I include examples of both inscriptions and epitaphs that confirm this cause of death (all on 19th-century stones here in Maine). Ron Romano