German Boy Hit By Meteorite, Survives
Can he claim insurance? Considered “Accident’? Or “Act of God”?
The odds of it happening are astronomical, but not impossible, as one schoolboy found out when he was struck by a passing meteorite.
The rock flew down from space at speeds of 30,000mph, and grazed past 14-year-old Gerrit Blank as he made his way to school.
The meteorite continued on before ending its billion-year intergalactic journey on the pavement, leaving a smoking, foot-wide crater.
Gerrit was left with a scar on his hand, making him one of only a handful of people to have been struck directly by a meteorite.
The student, from Essen, Germany, said: ‘At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand.
‘Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder.’
The rock would originally have been a lot larger, but would have burned up in the atmosphere as it fell to Earth. Most ‘shooting stars’ burn up completely before they hit the ground.
