First responders said a man taking cover underneath a pier near the Sand Dollar Beach Resort was shocked by a bolt of lightning that struck a light post on the pier.
Witnesses said they saw the man hide under the pier for safety and then moments later watched a powerful bolt hit the pier and shock the man.
“Everybody kept yelling oh my god that guy got struck by lightning, so we were really worried,” Stephen Barber said. Barber is a beach attendant at the resort and was one of a handful of Good Samaritans that ran over to the man and carried him to safety.
“He just looked confused. He didn't have any visible burn marks on his body,” Barber said. “He was kind of on his belly looking around and we were like ‘hey man we gotta get out of here’ so we kind of grabbed him and took him up, he couldn't walk.”
The man was talking to first responders as they loaded him onto the ambulance.
Barber said he has worked on the beach for the past seven years and never experienced a summer storm that intense.
“It was one of the worst storms I've seen. It was falling in sheets, obviously lightning everywhere,” Barber said.
