• Font Size    

Wild World of Weather

Up, Up, and Away With Fay
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Lightning Kills One Man At July 4th Celebration

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +   
Jul 5, 2009 7:43 am US/Eastern

Lightning Kills One Man At July 4th Celebration

18 People Were Injured In Lakeland Lightning Strike

LAKELAND (CBS4) ― A Fourth of July celebration took a tragic turn after a lightning strike killed one person and injured more than a dozen others.

About one hundred members of a church group in Lakeland, about 30 miles east of Tampa, were outside Saturday afternoon playing soccer and volley ball when a series of lightning bolts struck.  Benjamin Gonzalez, 30, was killed and 18 others were taken to local hospitals.

"It's very sad to see folks just celebrating the Fourth, in a way that you would hope people would celebrate the Fourth, with friends and family, and a lightning strike, an act of God occurred, and one person died," said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

Judd said there was no damage to the field, trees or a barn nearby, so it is unclear where the lightning hit.

The National Weather Service reports, on average, there are 1.5 million lightning strikes a year in Florida. Lightning causes more deaths in Florida than all other weather hazards combined, including hurricanes and tornadoes according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.



(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

The Best Of Celebrities In 2009!

© MMIX, CBS Television Stations Inc. All Rights Reserved.