"In the second that followed, I felt a shock on the ribs."
Poom Clap
A woman in France was reportedly struck by a tiny, rebounding piece of meteorite while chatting with a friend over a cup of coffee, according to French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace (DNA).
"I heard a big 'Poom' coming from the roof next to us," the woman, who was not identified by name, told the newspaper, as translated by Newsweek. "In the second that followed, I felt a shock on the ribs. I thought it was an animal, a bat!"
If confirmed, she would be the survivor of an exceedingly rare event. According to some calculations, the odds of getting struck by a meteor are roughly that of winning the lottery twice, or flipping a coin and having it come up heads 44 times in a row. That's despite roughly 48.5 tons of meteoritic material falling on Earth each day, according to NASA, most of which lands in the oceans or other unpopulated areas.
Rare Ware
After the mystery object rebounded off the woman, she took it geologist Thierry Rebmann, who found that it contained a mixture of iron and silicon, meaning it could indeed possibly be a meteorite.
"It's very rare, in our temperate environments to find them," Rebmann told DNA. "They merge with other elements. On the other hand, in a desert environment, we can find them more easily."
There have been only a very few reports of people getting hit by meteorites throughout history, though others have suffered close calls.
In 1954, an Alamba woman was struck by a rebounding nine-pound meteorite that crashed through her ceiling, leaving a deep bruise. The incident is often cited as the only example in history of somebody being confirmed as having been directly hit by a space rock.
In short, could this really be the next incident of a person getting struck by an errant rock that fell from space? For now, we'll wait for some more evidence to roll in.
More on meteorites: Cops Say Meteorite Appears to Have Smashed New Jersey House
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