Lightning Strike Witness: 'Just Boom, It Came Out Of Nowhere'
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - A lifeguard who was struck by lightning while on duty talked to CBS4 about the incident. Six teenagers in all were hit, but none of them were seriously hurt.
The strike happened Saturday afternoon at the Del Mar pool in Aurora. It didn't directly hit anyone but there were some minor injuries.
Four of the teens were taken to the hospital. They were among hundreds of people out at Del Mar Park located south of 6th Avenue and east of Interstate 225. The six lifeguards had already cleared the pool when the strike hit.
"Oh man, it's unexplainable. It was real loud," said Sherman Joiner who witnessed the strike. "I was barbecuing for my son's birthday party and lightning started going off."
Joiner said the strike surprised everyone.
"It came out quick, they were telling everybody to move and the lifeguards were doing their job moving stuff, and then all of the sudden a big one -- just boom -- out of nowhere," Joiner said.
Isaiah Patterson is one of the teens that got shocked.
"It was like a big boom and a white flash and like I was carrying chairs and it shocked me, so I threw them down. My arm started having a tingling feeling," Patterson said.
"You could see the lightning actually come out the sky … we dropped to the floor and you looked around and there was a lifeguard laying down probably five feet from me," Joiner said.
The lightning likely contacted the chairs and shocked the water on the ground zapping the others.
"I just (saw) one laying on the ground and he was, really couldn't move, but then they got him up and brought him in," Joiner said.
It was just one of several dangerous lightning strikes recently. On Friday a newlywed was killed while hiking on Mount Yale in Chaffee County. She's been identified as Kathleen Bartlett. Investigators say her husband is in critical but stable condition. The sheriff's department says a father and son from Colorado Springs were also in the area and got hit. They walked down the mountain with minor injuries.
