If you want to protect yourself from something that hasn’t caused any fatal incidents in 20 years anyhow.

Gift link still paywalls :?

Yes but if you are covered in electrolyte and standing atop a well-grounded drain pipe, you may just be that path.

Also, lighting is not simple mathematical electricity. It is subject to innumerable, even quantum, fluctuations at the precise moment it chooses to move. Lighting also partially creates its own path as it ionizes air/water into plasma. That's why bolts are jagged and not smooth beams between cloud and ground. It may or may not choose to go through or around you. It is best to avoid needing to ask such questions.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dvVW1e_trW0

“Path of least resistance” is a simplification of ohm's law, and that simplification simply isn't very relevant when dealing with voltages with 7-9 digits and tens of kiloamperes: at those voltages, even high impedance paths will have a non-trivial current (to lifeforms made of bags of saltwater).

And don't forget that an instantaneous discharge of 10,000A will also create a tremendous magnetic field which will immediately collapse, creating voltages that will induce eddy currents in conductors (such as the aforementioned bags of saltwater) that are near the main current flow.