In spring 1972, Sullivan was working inside a ranger station in Shenandoah National Park when he was struck again.
The lightning hit a nearby power transformer and from there jumped to his left shoulder, searing it. In July 1970, Sullivan was struck while in his front yard.The uncontrolled truck kept moving until it stopped near a cliff edge. The strike knocked Sullivan unconscious and burned off his eyebrows and eyelashes, and set his hair on fire. The lightning first hit nearby trees and was deflected into the open window of the truck. Unusually, he was hit while in his truck, driving on a mountain road – the metal body of a vehicle normally protects people from lightning strikes by acting as a Faraday cage. It burned a half-inch strip all along his right leg, hit his toe, and left a hole in his shoe. Sullivan said to then have run out from the burning tower, just before being struck a few feet away by lightning. Sullivan described a scene from within the tower, saying that "fire was jumping all over the place". The tower was newly built and had no lightning rod at the time it was said to have been struck seven to eight times. He said to have been hiding from a thunderstorm in a fire lookout tower. Sullivan's first documented lightning strike was in April 1942.
Sullivan described in detail each of the alleged strike encounters. Two of his ranger hats are on display at two Guinness World Exhibit Halls in New York City and South Carolina. On the morning of September 28, 1983, Sullivan died at the age of 71 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He once recalled "For instance, I was walking with the Chief Ranger one day when lightning struck way off (in the distance). He was told to have been avoided by people during the later years of his life, owing to fears of being struck by lightning, and that this saddened him. Sullivan was described as a brawny man with a broad, rugged face, who resembled the actor Gene Hackman.
He started working as a ranger in Shenandoah National Park in 1936. Roy was born in Greene County, Virginia, on February 7, 1912.
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