So. Cal. lightning strikes 14, kills 1

A 20-year-old man died Sunday after lightning struck 13 people at a popular Los Angeles beach and a golfer on Santa Catalina Island during rare summer thunderstorms that swept through Southern California, authorities said.

The bolt of electricity made a loud crack that sounded like an explosion on the warm and overcast afternoon, said witnesses to the Venice Beach strike.

"I heard this crackle, and there was this giant bolt of lightning shooting across the sky and the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard," witness Joe Doro told KCAL-TV.

Victims were apparently in the water or very close to it when the lightning struck, local officials told the broadcaster.

The eight survivors were hospitalized for treatment and observation after the lightning hit near Ocean Front Walk facing the Pacific Ocean, around 2:15 p.m. said Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Katherine Main. One other person was in critical condition, Main said, adding that a 15-year-old was among the victims.

The 20-year-old man taken to Marina Del Rey Hospital was later pronounced dead, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department. The cause of death was still being determined, a spokesman said.

Stuart Acher said he was struck by lightning while playing volleyball on the beach. "We went about our game, and then all of a sudden, there was a big flash of light and a boom, and it felt like someone punched me in the back of my head," he told KABC-TV. "It went down my whole side of my right body, and my calves sort of locked up, and I fell over. And I looked up, and everybody else was, you know, falling over." Paramedics examined Acher, but he felt all right and went back to playing volleyball.

"The majority of the folks that were on the [volleyball] court all felt a little tingly," said another player, Jerome Williams. "Everyone hit the court. It sounded like a sonic boom."

On Santa Catalina Island, which is often called Catalina Island, about 20 miles off the coast, a 57-year-old man was struck by lightning on a golf course and was hospitalized in stable condition, said Steve Denning, a law enforcement technician with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He did not have other details.

The lightning strikes occurred as a fierce but brief thunderstorm hit the island, causing minor flooding and setting two small fires in the brushy backcountry that were quickly doused, Denning said.

The National Weather Service predicted a chance of thunderstorms in Southern California on Sunday, and lightning was being blamed for a power outage affecting about 300 customers in Redondo Beach, some 12 miles south of Venice.

Lightning injuries or fatalities can occur during a direct strike or after a current is passed through the ground or jumps from a taller object, such as a tree, according to the National Weather Service.

Symptoms can range from cardiac arrest and injury to the nervous system to muscle soreness, headache and confusion.

Wire services