Rodeo Cowboy And His Horse Killed By Lightning Strike

A man riding and a horse he was riding were struck and killed by lightning in Nebraska last week.

Father of three Terrel Vineyard, a pro rodeo cowboy, was found just north of Oshkosh, Nebraska, on Wednesday June 21. He was pronounced dead at the scene by first responders.

After an autopsy, it was revealed that Vineyard, 27, had been killed by lightning strike, but no further information has been given regarding the accident, local news channel KNOP reported. Dose, the horse he was riding at the time, was also killed, according to Vineyard's obituary at bondegardfunerals.com.

Vineyard was a professional calf and team roper, and had qualified three times for the World Series of Team Roping in Las Vegas.

"Terrel had many horses along the way but always had a main mount during each phase of his life. Terrel purchased Dose a few years ago as a roping prospect. Terrel and Dose left for greener pastures together—Terrel with his rope in hand," his obituary reads.

Lighting strikes are a discharge of electricity from the clouds to the ground. If there is a conductive object pointing up into the sky, like a tree, or a person, the lightning may take the fastest route to the ground via that object. This is what's known as a direct lightning strike, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains, and involves electrical current moving along and over the skin surface, as well as through the body via the cardiovascular and/or nervous systems.

Such strikes—often with a voltage of more than 10 million volts, and a current of between 30,000 and 110,000 amperes—can be fatal or lead to severe injuries, including internal and external burns, organ damage and nervous system damage.

Other forms of lightning strike include side flashes, where lightning can jump from an object to a person in a kind of "short circuit," ground current, when a person standing near a lightning strike is electrocuted from the current in the ground, and conduction, when a person is touching a conductive material that is struck by lightning.

Direct strikes only account for around 5 percent of lightning injuries, with ground current being the most common cause, responsible for around half of all injuries, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Around 10 percent of people struck by lightning die, the CDC states, with the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year being less than one in a million. There were 444 lightning strike deaths across the U.S. from 2006 to 2021, and males were four times more likely than females to be struck.

Vineyard's funeral was held on Tuesday, June 27, according to his obituary, with horses and their riders being encouraged to attend. He leaves behind three daughters and a wife, whom he had married only four months before his death, in February 2023.

A GoFundMe has been set up to raise money for Vineyard's daughters' college education. As of June 29, it has raised $4,320 of a $5,000 target.

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