Daniel Wolfram
A warm and sunny Sunday afternoon turned dark and tragic with surprise thunderstorms.
A tragedy occurred last month in Margate, Florida, when sunny conditions suddenly turned into a lethal thunderstorm.
Emergency crews responded to a distress call. There, officers found two victims lying motionless on the pavement.
The victims were Kenya Glasgow, 31, and her two-year-old daughter. Both were instantly rushed to the hospital under police escort. Tragically, both mother and child were pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
Dangerous myth exposed
AccuWeather has since reviewed the body camera footage the officers recorded during the rescue attempt. On the recording, dispatch radioed officers that “the caller is advising she’s (the mother) still not safe to touch.”
An officer then explained the reason for not helping Glasgow and her daughter to a bystander. “We can’t, ma’am. We have to wait because if her body is still charged from the lightning, then we run the risk. We’re just waiting on fire rescue.”
However, according to AccuWeather, that fear expressed by the officers is a common myth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stresses that human bodies do not store electricity after a strike, making it safe to help victims immediately.
Thunderstorms with no warning
AccuWeather recorded 120 strikes within 10 miles in just 30 minutes. Forty-four of those were dangerous strikes that hit the ground.
Meteorologist Peyton Simmers noted that “just 15 minutes prior to 2:30 p.m. in Margate, it was dry, though there were some thundershowers about 6–10 miles away, it was not raining in the town itself.”
Simmers then added, “Within 15 minutes, a thunderstorm rapidly developed over Margate and quickly produced a lot of lightning. It is a reminder that lightning can strike up to 10 miles outside of a thunderstorm.”
According to the National Lightning Safety Council, this tragedy marks the 15th and 16th U.S. lightning casualties this year; nearly 40% of them occurred in Florida.
