Dale’s Daily Data: Meteorite Strike

Your chances of winning the lottery are better than what happened to this woman.  It happened in Alabama when Elizabeth Hodges was sleeping on the couch at her home.  There was a loud crash and through the roof and into the living room came a 7-inch wide 8 and a half pound meteorite, bounced off a radio and struck Mrs. Hodges on the hip.  She suffered a nasty bruise to her hip and leg, but it left no permanent injury.  It’s the first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being and it happened on November 30^th in 1954.

In June, 1994, a 3-pound meteorite crashed through the windshield of a car in Madrid, Spain and landed in the back seat.  The driver suffered a broken finger.  His wife escaped unhurt.

There have been instances where animals have been killed by meteorites – a horse in Ohio in 1860 and a dog in Egypt in 1911.

But, in all of recorded human history, no one has ever been killed by a meteorite.  In October of 1992 there was a large green fireball that streaked across the Eastern sky.  One of the pieces struck a parked car in Peekskill, New York and punched a hole through the trunk.  The owner found a still warm 26-pound meteorite.

Source: www.history.com