Fighter pilot William Rankin bailed out of a failing jet in 1959 and found himself inside a thunderstorm:

I saw lightning all around me in every shape imaginable. When very close, it appeared mainly as a huge, bluish sheet several feet thick, sometimes sticking close to me in pairs, like the blades of a scissors, and I had the distinct feeling that I was being sliced in two. It was raining so torrentially that I thought I would drown in midair. Several times I had held my breath, fearing that otherwise I might inhale quarts of water. How silly, I thought, they’re going to find you hanging from some tree, in your parachute harness, your lungs filled with water, wondering how on earth you drowned.

The stormcloud toyed with him for 45 minutes before it finally put him down — 65 miles from where he’d bailed out.