A sunny afternoon at a lakeside beach in South Carolina took a sudden and dangerous turn when an unexpected lightning strike sent more than a dozen people to local hospitals. The incident occurred Tuesday at Dominion Beach Park, near Lake Murray Dam, where families had gathered to enjoy the warm weather.
Emergency responders from Lexington County quickly arrived and assessed 20 individuals — among them 12 children. Eighteen were treated on-site, and 12 were transported to hospitals with injuries officials described as non-life-threatening.
County spokesperson Vanessa Diaz said all patients are expected to recover, according to the Associated Press.
The lightning hit the water while several swimmers were near or holding onto a metal cable surrounding the designated swim area.
“Everybody got quite a jolt,” the Irmo Fire District shared in a social media post. “We’re so fortunate that injuries were not worse than they were.”
Minor burns were reported, with the most severe injuries sustained by those in contact with the cable, Irmo Fire District spokesperson Sloane Valentino confirmed.
The National Weather Service’s Matt Gropp described the bolt as “a bolt from the blue,” a rare but dangerous phenomenon where a lightning strike emerges from a storm several miles away. Despite partly sunny skies above the beach, a developing storm just to the south likely generated the strike. “It was one of the first strikes of the storm and the people there weren’t expecting it,” Gropp explained.
Authorities closed the beach temporarily to conduct safety checks, with plans to reopen the park by Wednesday once it was cleared.
