Shenandoah National Park — Archive

As you know, we Archive Gals are huge fans of the National Park Service! We can't think of a better way to spend our free time or vacations than exploring America's National Parks. We have both fantasied about what it would be like to be a park ranger and today just so happens to be World Ranger Day!

We were amazed to hear about the infamous Roy Sullivan, a US Park Ranger who is recognized by Guinness World Records as being the person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being, an unbelievable SEVEN times.

Sullivan began working at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia in 1936. He was actually avoided by other park rangers later in life because of their fear of being struck by lightning. His lightning strikes occurred in 1942, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1976 and 1977, and were all verified by doctors.

On Saturday morning, June 25, 1977, Sullivan was struck for a seventh time while fishing in a freshwater pool. Immediately after he was struck he turned to see a bear approaching him, trying to steal the trout off of his fishing line. Sullivan then fought off the bear by hitting him with a tree branch. Sullivan claimed that this had been the twenty-second time he fought off a bear with a stick in his lifetime.