By Brian Mugenyi
[email protected]m. Interviewing Dr. Mary Ann Cooper transpired naturally as easy as writing a book to a master.
See, the lightning had already done its damage.
On June 28, 2011, children at Runyanya Primary School in Kiryandongo were inside their classrooms, waiting for a downpour to pass.
Then lightning struck.
Eighteen children died instantly. Thirty-six others were injured.
For the families, it was a catastrophe. For the school, it became a wound that would take years to heal.
But thousands of kilometres away, the tragedy would also help shape the next chapter in the life of an American doctor who had spent decades studying what lightning does to the human body.
Her name is Dr. Mary Ann Cooper.
For more than 50 years, Mary has pursued one mission: understanding lightning, preventing injuries and deaths, and teaching people that although lightning is a force of nature, many of its consequences can be prevented.
Her journey has taken her from emergency medicine in the United States to classrooms, communities and lightning-safety programmes across Africa.
And Uganda became one of the places where her life’s work found a particularly powerful purpose.
A doctor drawn to the storm
Mary career began in science and medicine.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Michigan State University before obtaining her medical degree from the university’s College of Human Medicine. She later completed an internship at William Beaumont Hospital and specialised in emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
It was in medicine that lightning became more than a weather phenomenon.
It became a human problem.
A lightning strike could leave a person dead within seconds. Those who survived could face serious and sometimes lasting injuries.
Mary began asking a question that would define her career:
If lightning injuries can be understood, can they also be prevented?
That question took her beyond the emergency room.
She became an internationally recognised expert on lightning injury and safety and later Professor Emerita in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ACLENet describes her as an international expert in lightning injury and safety and notes her long career in injury prevention and work with lightning and electrical-injury survivors.
Her body of work includes books, peer-reviewed research, chapters and hundreds of scientific presentations.
But Mary’s work has never been simply about collecting scientific knowledge.
It has been about getting that knowledge to people before lightning strikes.
“It is a natural part of nature”
Speaking virtually from the United States during a lightning-safety meeting, Mary returned repeatedly to a simple message: lightning is natural, but misunderstanding it can be dangerous.
“It is a natural part of nature, just like nature,” she said.
She challenged common myths surrounding lightning, including the belief that particular colours or ordinary objects attract strikes.
Lightning, she explained, is more likely to strike tall, isolated or pointed objects.
That message matters because myths can create a false sense of security.
ACLENet has similarly warned Ugandans against misconceptions such as the belief that lightning is caused by witches or that lightning cannot strike the same place twice. The organisation says tall, isolated or pointed objects are more likely to be struck.
For Cooper, education is therefore not an academic exercise.
It can be the difference between life and death.
Uganda changed the story
The Runyanya tragedy became part of a much bigger story.
According to ACLENet, Cooper and Ugandan scientist Richard Tushemereirwe met at a lightning meeting in Nepal in 2011, only months after the Runyanya deaths. They subsequently pledged to work together to reduce lightning deaths and injuries across Africa.
Mary recalled how the experiences of Ugandan advocates drew her attention to the country.
“I was interested in Nepal and Uganda’s Richard, a trainee on lightning, talked about the dangers of it and how it has affected people, and I picked interest to work with Uganda,” she said.
The partnership became part of the foundation for what would become ACLENet, the African Centres for Lightning Education Network.
Today, Cooper serves as its co-founder and managing director. ACLENet’s mission is to reduce deaths, injuries and property damage from lightning across Africa through protection systems, education, research and public awareness.
From tragedy to protection
Runyanya illustrates what that mission can mean in real life.
After the 2011 deaths, school enrolment reportedly fell from about 600 to 400 because parents feared sending their children back.
Then ACLENet installed a lightning-protection system.
The school’s head teacher later reported that enrolment rose above 800 as families regained confidence in the safety of the school.
That is perhaps the most powerful measure of Cooper’s work.
A lightning-protection system is not merely metal, wires and engineering.
At Runyanya, it helped restore something less tangible:
confidence.
It told parents that rain did not have to mean choosing between education and safety.
It told children that the classroom could once again be a place of learning rather than fear.
And it showed what Cooper’s philosophy looks like when science leaves the laboratory and enters a community.
A problem the world does not fully count
For Mary, one of the greatest obstacles to fighting lightning is that many countries do not adequately document its victims.
“For 30 years, I have been in conferences of lightning, and the pain the people go through has been shared,” she said.
But, she added:
“Most of the countries don’t have record death toll for lightning.”
That missing data matters.
When deaths are not properly recorded, the scale of the problem becomes difficult to measure.
When the scale is difficult to measure, it becomes harder to persuade governments to invest in protection.
And when investment does not come, vulnerable communities remain exposed.
ACLENet has responded by investigating lightning mass-casualty incidents and building injury-reporting resources to improve understanding of the problem. Its researchers have documented incidents in Uganda, including the 2020 lightning strike that killed 10 children and injured four others near Odramacaku.
The science behind the flash
Mary’s approach is grounded in science, not superstition.
She acknowledges that lightning is part of a complex atmospheric process involving weather and instability.
“I don’t know what causes wind and the rain, but what is necessary is the heat, sunshine and rising air instability,” she said.
Modern technology can also detect and monitor lightning activity, providing opportunities for better warning, preparedness and protection.
For communities, however, the science must eventually become practical knowledge.
Where should people shelter?
When should outdoor activities stop?
How should schools be protected?
What should teachers tell children when a storm approaches?
Those are the questions that transform research into lives saved.
Fifty years of evidence
Mary’s authority comes from a career that has combined medicine, research and advocacy.
Her professional record includes seven books and monographs, 95 peer-reviewed publications, three editorials and more than 135 chapters and revisions, according to her professional profile.
She has presented her work at hundreds of international, national and regional meetings.
Her expertise has also brought her into consultation with major U.S. institutions, including NASA, the National Park Service, the National Weather Service and NOAA.
She became a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2003 — the first physician to receive the honour.
Her work has also earned recognition from the Wilderness Medical Society and other professional organisations.
In 2026, her five decades of work were further recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Conference on Lightning Protection, according to her professional profile.
But awards are not what appear to motivate Cooper most.
The victims are.
The children are.
The families are.
The work continues
ACLENet’s work in Uganda has expanded beyond Runyanya.
The organisation’s Lightning Protection Working Group designs systems for schools using internationally recognised standards, while its programmes combine physical protection with education for pupils, teachers, parents and communities.
In other words, Cooper’s philosophy is not simply to tell people to fear lightning.
It is to teach them how to live more safely with it.
That distinction is important.
Fear paralyses.
Knowledge prepares.
And preparation can save lives.
The legacy of a doctor who refused to stop at the hospital door
For half a century, Mary Ann Cooper has followed lightning from the moment it strikes to the moment its consequences reach a hospital, a classroom, a family and sometimes an entire community.
She has studied the injuries.
She has listened to survivors.
She has documented deaths.
She has challenged myths.
She has trained professionals.
She has helped build protection systems.
And she has taken the conversation across borders.
Her greatest contribution may therefore not be any single paper, conference or award.
It may be the idea that a lightning death should not simply be accepted as fate.
At Runyanya, 18 children were lost in seconds.
But years later, the school became an example of what can happen when tragedy produces action rather than resignation.
That is the thread running through Mary’s five-decade journey.
Lightning will continue to flash.
Thunder will continue to roll.
Storms will continue to come.
But a child standing beneath a protected school roof can face the storm differently from a child standing beneath an unprotected one.
And that is where Mary’s life’s work ultimately leads — away from the laboratory, away from the conference room and back to the ordinary child waiting for the rain to stop.
The lightning cannot be stopped.
But the loss does not have to be inevitable.
Do you have a story in your community or an opinion to share with us: Email us at Submit an Article
