A 29-year-old Colorado man died Saturday after he was struck by lightning while standing in the ocean under blue skies at New Smyrna Beach in Florida.
The man, who has not been publicly identified, was visiting Florida for his honeymoon and was standing in ankle-deep water on the beach when he was struck by lightning just before 12:30 p.m. Friday, said Tammy Malphurs, director of Volusia County Beach Safety.
He was immediately treated and taken to a hospital, but died on Saturday, she said. Malphurs did not know where in Colorado the man lived. No one else was hurt in the strike.
The beach was open at the time and experiencing blue skies, Malphurs said.
“This was a very rare occurrence, there was not a storm immediately over us,” she said. “This lightning bolt came from a storm several miles away. So we still had blue skies over us.”
Beach safety officials routinely close the beach on summer afternoons for thunderstorms, she said, but had not done so before the man was struck.
“It’s one of those rare and just tragic things,” she said. “It just couldn’t be avoided.”
She said visitors should be aware that being on a beach is one of the “most dangerous places to be in a lightning storm.”
