A CHILLING photo shows the moment two brothers grin while their hair stands on end – just moments before disaster strikes.
Michael McQuilken, 18, and his little brother Sean, 12, would never have imagined what would happen next after noticing their hair had gone static.
The siblings were climbing Moro Rock In California's Sequoia National Park and were completely unaware that they were about to be struck by lightning.
Electrical charges in the atmosphere just before a strike can lift hair into the air, providing nature's last warning of a bolt from the blue.
And that's exactly what happened to brothers Michael and Sean, who could only laugh in the moment due to their unfortunate lack of awareness.
“We were from San Diego and really stupid,” says Michael, who was long-haired when the snapshot was taken on Aug. 20, 1975.
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“We thought it was something funny.”
Michael recalled feeling the sensation of being lifted off the ground for several seconds, while Sean was knocked unconscious.
He suffered third degree burns and burns and had smoke coming off his back and elbows.
“I found myself on the ground with the others,” Michael recalled. “Sean was collapsed and huddled on his knees. Smoke was pouring from his back.
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"I rushed over to him and checked his pulse and breathing. He was still alive.
"I put out the embers on his back and elbows and carried him down the path towards the parking lot, with the rest of the group following."
Miraculously, both of the boys survived, but the same couldn't be said for a nearby hiker, Lawrence Brady, who was also struck.
Another man, nearer the top of the rock, was also hit.
He lived but the camera he was trying to document the storm with was blown to pieces.
In 2013, Michael revisited the situation and revealed that he began to appreciate life after the near miss with death and even took up meditation.
“I never was cautious before that,” he told NBC News. “Now, if I’m out to climb a peak, I’m the first person to bail if clouds gather.”
The boys weren't alone on that deadly afternoon in the Sierra Nevada mountains – their other brother Jeff, sister Mary, 15, and her friend Margie joined them.
Using an old Kodak Instamatic Camera, Michael and Mary managed to capture the amusing pictures of their hair standing on end once they reached the top of the granite dome.
Michael recalled: “I took a photo of Mary and Mary took a photo of Sean and me.
"I raised my right hand into the air and the ring I had on began to buzz so loudly that everyone could hear it.”
It was only after the temperature dropped and they decided to return back down the mountain that the lightning bolt struck.
But those pictures they captured of each other that day were sent on to local rangers and soon captured the interest of a man named John Jensenius.
The lightning safety specialist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered Michael's blog post about the incident and shared it with a wide audience.
The photo of the two boys was once used in brochures to help warn campers about the potential for danger.
And Michael, now 66, said people still emailed him about once a week to ask about that hair-raising photo – decades after it was taken.
“That whole experience just feels like it happened yesterday,” he said.
Michael, who lost his brother Sean to suicide in 1989, has since been known to caution other hikers when it's too dangerous to climb.
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But it's clear that, like when they were on the mountain, they, too, think their chance of injury is remote.
"I’ve told them, 'This is not safe,'" Michael said. "But they seem to take what I say very lightly.”
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