Lightning [123rf]
Lightning [123rf]

A woman in her 30s and her 2-year-old daughter were killed by a lightning strike during a storm in Florida.

According to local media including NBC6, the incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. Sunday (local time) on Northwest First Street in Margate, Broward County, Florida.

Margate police and fire rescue crews responded after receiving reports that two people had been struck by lightning and collapsed on the sidewalk. Paramedics performed CPR at the scene before transporting both to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

The victims were identified as Kenya Glasgow, 31, and her 2-year-old daughter Kennedy. The family had just arrived at a relative's home and were trying to get inside to take shelter from the storm.

Kenya's husband, Cameron Glasgow, was standing right beside his wife and daughter at the time and witnessed the strike. He said he felt the shock travel through the ground after the lightning hit. "I turned around and they were gone," he said.

Kennedy had a twin sister, Kensley, who survived. "There are no words to describe what my daughter is going through, having lost her twin," Cameron said. NBC6 broadcast footage of him collapsed on the ground, overcome with grief.

NBC6's First Alert Live Doppler radar recorded more than 200 lightning strikes within a 20-mile (about 32-kilometer) radius of Margate between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. that day.

The National Weather Service said five ground strikes were recorded within 1 mile (about 1.6 kilometers) of where the Glasgow family was struck.

Chris Vagasky, a lightning data expert with the National Lightning Safety Council, urged people to go indoors as soon as they hear thunder. "Thunder can be heard up to 15 miles (about 24 kilometers) away, so if you can hear it, you are already in a lightning-risk zone," he said.


bbo@heraldcorp.com