The Jefferson County coroner’s office is withholding the name of a man believed killed by lightning north of Red Rocks Park on Friday until his family is notified.
The man, believed to be in his 20s, was discovered by mountain bikers as storms rolled across the Front Range on Friday.
Northeast of Denver, Friday’s downpour forced about a half-dozen families in the Frederick-Firestone area to seek shelter after their homes flooded, and manhole covers were blown out in Fort Morgan.
Elsewhere on the plains, “farmers are just loving it,” National Weather Service meteorologist Kyle Fredin said. “There’s no hail.”
A second band of thunderstorms swept south of Denver late Saturday, dropping up to 1 1/2 inches of rain in parts of Douglas County. The Weather Service issued a flood watch for Douglas and Elbert counties until midnight.
The man killed Friday was about three-quarters of a mile from the parking lot at Matthews/Winter Park in Jefferson County, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The park is along Colorado 93, between Red Rocks Park and Interstate 70, and its trails are popular with joggers and mountain bikers.
Kelley said the coroner’s office has identified the man who died, but will not release his name until his family has been informed.
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 Weather Service, 73 people die from lightning strikes in the U.S. each year and hundreds more are injured.
From 1990 to 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.
Last year, five people were killed and 15 injured by lightning in Colorado. In an average year in Colorado, three people are killed and 13 are injured.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
