Lightning kills 9-year-old as family takes cover during walk, Georgia coroner says
A 9-year-old girl is dead after being struck by lightning as a storm moved through Moultrie, Georgia, on Friday.
Nicol Mateo Pedro, 9, was on a walking trail with her mother, sister and two others when she was struck and killed, Colquitt County Coroner Verlyn Brock told McClatchy News.
A storm rolled in around 5 p.m., and the family sought refuge under a shelter on the trail. The city had set up rest areas along the path, one of which had a canopy, Brock said.
As the family waited out the storm, lightning hit a tree adjacent to the shelter where they were sitting. The bolt of electricity “traveled into the shelter, hitting the young girl,” WSB-TV reported.
Pedro was rushed to Colquitt Regional Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, according to the station.
Her sister was airlifted to the John Still Burn Center in Augusta with serious injuries, WALB reported.
Pedro’s mother and the two others huddled with them weren’t injured by the strike, Brock told The Moultrie Observer.
Since 2009, the U.S. has averaged 27 reported lightning fatalities, according to the National Weather Service. Lightning is considered a “major cause of storm related deaths in the U.S.,” and the odds of being struck in a given year are 1 in 1,222,000, the NWS reports.
