A 13-year-old boy has died after being struck by lightning on Thursday afternoon at Orchard Beach in New York City, police reported.
Carlos Ramos was among seven people rushed to the hospital after a lightning bolt struck the Bronx beach at 5.20pm.
Ramos suffered cardiac arrest after the strike, according to officials, and was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center. He died Friday morning from his injuries.
The six other victims are expected to survive.
Thirteen-year-old Carlos Ramos has died after being struck by lightning on Thursday afternoon at Orchard Beach in the Bronx , police reported.
The lifeguards at Orchard Beach had ordered people out of the water and made announcements to clear the beach before the lightning strike, a spokesperson from the Parks Department said
Eric Sandoval told New York Daily News that he was 'walking on the beach with my family' when the lightning struck his 13-year-old daughter Stacey.
Sandoval said: 'It hit my daughter and she went down. I thought she had a heart attack. I went crazy. I was screaming, "Somebody help us! Somebody help us!"'
He said another beachgoer helped him pump his daughter's chest until the ambulance arrived, according to the newspaper.
A 5-year-old, Stefon Harris, also survived the lightning strike. His father, who is also named Stefon, said: 'I was able to speak with my five-year-old over the phone. He seems like he's going to be OK.'
Fifteen-year-old Miguel Maldonado was also struck. The teen was part of a group of six children and two adults making a trip to the beach that day.
'They were getting ready to leave the beach and it came, the lightning. They were all struck,' Alfredo Ferrer, Miguel's uncle, told the paper.
The strike happened the same day an excessive heat warning was put into effect in New York City. The National Weather Service warned of 'dangerously hot conditions with heat index values up to 105'
Ramos was among seven people rushed to Jacobi Medical Center . The six other victims are expected to survive
The lifeguards at Orchard Beach had ordered people out of the water and made announcements to clear the beach before the lightning strike, a spokesperson from the Parks Department said.
The hospitalized victims were all on the sand when the storm arrived.
Beachgoer Raul Dejesus told NBC 4 New York that the storm 'came out of nowhere'.
'Everybody started running to the bathroom and when we were in the bathroom, we kept hearing these thunders. Boom boom boom. We heard screams and yelling and, oh man, somebody got struck,' he said.
The strike happened the same day an excessive heat warning was put into effect in New York City. The National Weather Service warned of 'dangerously hot conditions with heat index values up to 105'.
It was 92 degrees out when the storm passed through the Bronx.
The fatal lightning strike way the latest in a string of incidents to hit the US this summer.
Seventeen people died from lightning incidents in the US in 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Last week, 37-year-old Nicholas Torchia died after he was struck by lightning while hiking a trail in the Northern California mountains.
And last month five people were struck while on the beach in Southwest Florida over just a 10-day span.
Two were killed, including Walker Bethune, 17, who died in the hospital from his injuries 11 days after the lightning strike.
In total, six people have been killed by lightning in the US this year, according to the National Weather Service.