This case is different in an important way. Most people will go inside during a thunderstorm and check for cars before crossing a street, so avoiding these risks doesn't require an unusual degree of vigilance. katydee is claiming that unusually good situational awareness is frequently a decisive factor in avoiding death or serious injury. If that's true, then we should expect to hear about people dying due to inadequate situational awareness fairly often because most people don't have above average situational awareness.

However, I think this is possibly explained by the fact that people with good situational awareness are far more likely to place themselves in situations were good situational awareness is required.