Last Updated on August 1, 2016 12:01 pm
The second death in North Carolina due to lightning occurred over the weekend, this time on the coast.
A 5-year-old boy from the Philadelphia area died after being struck by lightning Sunday afternoon on the beach in the four-wheel drive area of the Currituck Outer Banks, according to OuterBanksvoice.com. EMS crews responded to the call just after 4pm, the boy passed away later at a hospital in Virginia.
Just two weeks ago a lay minister was killed on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the entrance to Mount Mitchell. Scott Pasour, a resident of Dallas North Carolina, was traveling with two other motorcyclists when they stopped to put on rain gear after traveling down from the peak of Mount Mitchell State Park, according to the Gaston Gazette. The fellow riders say they had not seen lightning, nor heard any thunder in the area until a bolt came down striking the helmet of Pasour. He was 54 years old.
The latest fatality puts North Carolina alongside Alabama and Louisiana with two deaths in 2016. Florida, which typically leads the nation in lightning related deaths, has reported 5 so far for the year. According to the National Weather Service, lightning kills an average of 49 people in the US each year with hundreds more severely injured.
Graphic: National Weather Service
