I did wonder if I’d get a post on this from you. I can re-assure you that Ben was safely 1500m below in Music Creek Biv by the time the storm hit, and that myself (plus a crew of lizard-botherers from Otago Uni 1000m further along the range) were the only idiots still out there wandering about in the mist and oblivious to the encroaching storm. Though your policy re Angelina may well be for the best.
Interesting how many of us report sensations 200-300ms before the flash (that would be my estimate for the punch I felt too). Begins to sound like a genuine feature of the sequence of events around a lightning strike, rather than an artifact of the mind. Unless its an identical artifact of all our minds, of course.