Lightning struck three people in Florida on Friday afternoon, leaving a young man hospitalised.
A man in his twenties was hurt by a lightning bolt while standing in the ocean off New Smyrna Beach on Friday afternoon, and two other people were struck while playing golf shortly after.
A New Smyrna Beach Patrol member reported that the man who was hit on the beach was from Colorado.
The first event occurred when a lightning bolt impacted the ocean near a man on the beach, but because water is a conductor of electricity, the man received an electrical shock from the blast, according to the New Smyrna Beach Fire Department.
New Smyrna Fire, Volusia County Fire, and Edmonton EMS responded to find the man unconscious and in cardiac arrest.
According to fire personnel, he was soon transported to a local hospital and his pulse was restored.
The man’s condition remains unknown.
A short time later, the New Smyrna Fire Department reported that two players playing golf at the Club at Venetian Bay golf course were indirectly struck by lightning.
According to New Smyrna Fire, the two golfers denied EMS transport to the hospital, thus it is unclear if they were wounded.
According to Adam Sarwi, a spokesperson for the New Smyrna Fire Department, while it is unusual to have three persons struck by lightning in one day, “it is not uncommon when someone is struck by lightning that there are others during the same storm.”
According to recent studies, Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, with approximately 300 lightning strikes per square mile annually.
