One dead and eight injured in L.A. during freak lightning strike

A 20-year-old man was killed and at least eight others were injured in Los Angeles on Sunday when a freak lightning strike hit Venice Beach.

All of the victims were hospitalized after the lightning hit near Ocean Front Walk at around 2:15 p.m. on Sunday. Most of the victims, include a 15-year-old, were in fair condition but at least one was in critical condition and another was in grave condition.

The emergency officials who responded to the freak event say as many as nine people may have been injured by the lightning strike.

The National Weather Service has predicted the possibility of thunderstorms in the area. According to the Service, lightning injuries or even fatalities can occur during a direct strike or after the current has passed through the ground or jumped from a taller object, such as a tree.

This particular thunderstorm was especially strong, but very brief. It wasn’t long before the warm Southern California summer weather returned. Bystanders who witnessed the storm said that they very rarely, if ever, see storms like that in Los Angeles.

A weather expert told the LA Times that it’s an extremely rare occurrence in the area, and that it was a “sneak attack” that took everybody by surprise.

The expert continued, saying that the average Californian has about a 1 in 7,500,000 chance of being struck by lightning. For comparison, people living in Montana have about a 1 in 250,000 chance of being struck by lightning.

The 20-year-old man who died was pulled from the water by beachgoers and given CPR by the lifeguards before being taken away on a truck. “The guy wasn’t moving. He wasn’t responding at all,” Jesus Zamudio of Riverside told the Los Angeles Times.

Red more about the story at The Los Angeles Times.