Morrison — The Jefferson County Coroner’s office is withholding the name of a man believed killed by lightning near Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Friday until his family is notified. A coronor’s office spokeswoman wouldn’t identify the cause of death.
The man, believed to be in in his 20s, was discovered by mountain bikers as storms rolled across the Front Range on Friday.
The National Weather Service has issued a flash-flood watch for this afternoon and this evening for the urban corridor along the Front Range and the Eastern Plains as slow-moving storms are once again expected to bring heavy rainfall.
The man killed Friday was about 3/4 of a mile from the parking lot at Matthew Winters Park in Jefferson County, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
He was dressed in shorts and running shoes and was probably jogging, Kelley said.
A small group of mountain bikers found him lying near the trail unconscious and not breathing. They administered CPR but were unable to revive him, Kelley said. Burns on his body indicated he was hit by lightning.
“All indications are that is what happened. We had a huge storm that came through here, with lots of lightning and lots of thunder.”
According to the U.S. National Weather Service, 73 people die from lightning strikes each year and hundreds more are injured.
Between 1990 and 2003, 38 people died from lightning strikes in Colorado, and the state ranks third in the number of lightning-related deaths nationally, according to the National Lightning Safety Institute.
During 2006, 5 people were killed and 15 were injured by lightning in Colorado. In an average year in Colorado, 3 people are killed and 13 are injured.
Several counties were under a flash flood warning late Friday, including Weld, Morgan, Washington and Lincoln.
