A 16-year-old teenager died on Wednesday afternoon in the city of Pembroke Pines, in Broward County, Florida, after being struck by lightning.
Shortly before the tragic incident, the weather conditions in the area deteriorated rapidly, with heavy rains and intense winds.
The minor was riding his bicycle back home when he stopped in the neighborhood located on 67th Avenue, at the height of Southwest 6th Street, where he was found lying on the grass.
The teenager -identified as Cameron Day- was a junior at McArthur High School in Hollywood and was standing under a tree when the lightning strike hit him.
Zandra Laguna, a resident of the area, was an indirect witness to the tragedy. Laguna reported in statements to the local press that around 5:00 p.m. she went out in front of her house looking for her cat and saw the teenager on the other side of the street.
"It seemed like he was waiting for someone. He was on his bicycle, but he wasn't riding it," Laguna commented, adding that minutes later she heard the deafening sound of thunder and hurried into her house, scared.
The 911 emergency service was alerted to the situation shortly afterward.
"The subject was lying on the grass motionless, sprawled under the rain next to his bicycle," reported one of the 911 operators.
Upon arriving at the scene, the paramedics found the teenager in cardiac arrest and with obvious burns on his chest and thighs, which confirmed the hypothesis that he had been struck by lightning.
Despite efforts to revive him on site, Cameron Day was transported to Memorial Regional Hospital as a trauma alert, where he died moments after arriving.
It is not the first tragic death as a result of lightning this month in Florida.
Last Saturday, the young Cuban Adrián García (Adrián Chile García) passed away, who had been in serious condition in a hospital in Florida since a lightning strike hit him on August 31 at a beach in Naples, on the west coast of the state.
In the case of Adrián, 27 years old, the electric shock had caused severe brain damage, and he remained connected to a machine with artificial respiration, waiting for a miracle to aid in his recovery.
The lightning struck Adrián one day when he was enjoying the sea with his family in Naples. They entered the water after the rain had passed, the sky looked clear, and there were no thunder sounds. They were chatting calmly in the water when suddenly a lightning bolt hit him and two other family members. The other people recovered quickly, but Adrián suffered irreparable damage.
Just a year ago, in September 2023, another 16-year-old teenager died in Florida after fighting for her life in a hospital after the minor - identified as Baylee Holbrook - and her father were struck by lightning while hunting in a forest in Putnam County, in the northeast of the state.
In that case, the lightning struck both the teenager and her father next to the tree, causing both to lose consciousness. However, the father was saved, and the minor was not.
Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States reveal that around 28 people die annually in the country due to the impact of lightning.
The states of Florida, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, and Alabama record the highest number of those tragic incidents, mostly occurring during the summer.
Statistics reveal that one in four people affected by lightning in the United States is between 15 and 24 years old, and that most are engaged in outdoor recreational activities at the moment they are struck by the natural phenomenon.
The National Weather Service specified in a report that in 2022, 19 people died in the U.S. as a result of being struck by lightning. Four of those deaths occurred in Florida.
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