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| VENICE BEACH, CALIFORNIA |
Thousands of happy beachgoers, cooling themselves on an uncharacteristically muggy Southern California day, suddenly collapsed by their blankets and volleyball nets after a bolt of lightning struck the water a little after 2:30 p.m.
Rescuers rushed a 20-year-old man to the hospital, where he died, LA County coroner’s Lt. Larry Dietz said.
A 20-something man who was found floating face down following the deadly jolt is likely the strike’s one fatality, according to witnesses.
Steve Christensen said his body-surfing friend joined lifeguards looking for the missing swimmer, who was found in the surf.
“He (Christensen’s friend) went out to the water to find him and walked right into him,” Christensen said. “He was face down on the bottom.”
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“The guy wasn’t moving. He wasn’t responding at all,” Jesus Zamudio told the Los Angeles Times.
“This tragedy reminds us that we can take nothing for granted or underestimate the power of nature.”
One of the dozen injured was listed in critical condition.
The sudden boom of thunder and flash of lightning stunned beachgoers, unaccustomed to this kind of wild weather in Southern California.
“It was all blue skies, except there were some dark clouds coming from the south,” witness Gabe Anderson, 28, told the newspaper. “Then just one big crack of lightning — pretty unexpected.”
Stuart Acher said he was playing volleyball when lightning struck him like a punch “in the back of my head.”
“We went about our game and then all of a sudden, there was a big flash of light and a boom, and it felt like someone punched me in the back of my head,” Acher told KABC-TV.
“It went down my whole side of my right body, and my calves sort of locked up, and I fell over. And I looked up and everybody else was, you know, falling over.”
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