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From a Dallas-Fort Worth newspaper (August 29, 1995)
A bolt of lightning jolted a high school football field during afternoon practice yesterday, injuring 12 players, two coaches and a student trainer in the small town of Forney, 20 miles east of Dallas.
Sophomore Clay Jones, 15, suffered cardiac arrest and burns. He remained in critical condition last night at Baylor University Medical Cetner in Dallas.
Three students were in stable condition last night, five were still being evaluated and four others, including the female trainer, were treated and released, said Jeff Place, the evening administrator at Baylor.
The coaches-Brad Turner and Horlos Cotton Barrett - were released from the Medical Center of Mesquite about 8 p.m., a hospital spokeswoman said.
A light drizzle had just stopped when lightning hit the football field at 3:56 p.m. during daily practice of the combined varsity and junior varsity squads. The jolt left more than 30 players and coaches sprawled on the turf.
"We all hit the ground, and it was quiet for two or three seconds until they told us to hit the fieldhouse," said Oscar Rivera, 17, a varsity linebacker.
Coaches of the District 12-3A team stayed on the field, giving first aid to two junior varsity players who remained on the ground - Jones and sophomore Nick Purvis.
"It was like an explosion," said Rivera. You could feel it, and you smelled it burning."
Defensive end Raphael Dewberry said: "We heard a thump, and we all hit the ground. I was real close to one of the guys who got hit bad. I felt like a thump in my helmet, like somebody hit me with a bat or something. We all laid on the ground and on the count of three we all ran into the fieldhouse."
Once inside the fieldhouse, the players prayed.
"Right after we prayed was when they said they got a pulse on Clay," said Sean Daugherty, 17, a varsity linebacker.
"If this kid makes it, it's probably due to some fast acting by the coaches" who administered cardiopulmonary resusciatation, Forney Police Chief Rick Barnes said.
Daugherty and Rivera were among dozens of players and parents who converged at the Baylor emergency room last night, keeping tabs on the injured who had arrived still dressed in their football jerseys.
Addendum. Clay Jones died from his injuries a few weeks later. Lightning reportedly struck his helmet and the jolt of electricity sent him into cardiac arrest. A week prior to his death, hist parents said that their son's vital signs were strong but that his brain was swollen and that their biggest concern was potential brain damage. They said then that doctors had told them it could be days or weeks before the extent of damage was known.
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The Washington County Soccer Club is evaluating SkyScan, the first computerized hand-held lightning/thunderstorm detector. The SkyScan has been recently tested for accuracy at the District IV All-Star Little League Baseball Finals in Lake Wale, Florida; Duke Soccer Camp in Durham, North Carolina; the U.S. Senior Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland; and during football practice at Texas Christan University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas. The dtorm cell that went through Fort Worth on August 29, 1995 also passed through Forney, Texas where a young man died from a lightning strike while on the football practice field.
SkyScan has received very postive comments from around the country. It detects burst of electromagnetic radiation - in the forms of very low frequency radio signals - generated by lightning flashes. The SkyScan device can determine the range of the lightning flash up to 40 miles away.
WCSC's initial evaluation of the SkyScan product is favorable. It has been accurate for the storms we have monitored. We hope to use the SkyScan detector to help determine when to suspend or terminate games at the Bartlesville soccer complex. More information is available upon request.
As an update, unfortunately, WCSC has not come up with a clear path on how to implement
the use of the Skyscan Lightning Detector. It has worked reasonably well when we
have been able to test it, but we cannot agree on a plan that would allow it to be
universally used at our fields. While this is discussed, our best course is to keep
informing and educating the public.
We welcome all suggestions on creating a policy that is reasonable to all people.
Remember, use common sense above all else. The Skyscan lightning detector or any other weather detecting device should not be used by itself. To be truly applicable, reports from local tv and radio stations, and weather radar should be used in conjunction with the lightning detector.
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There comes a time when, regardless of all the built-in rules and safeguards, safety of the players is subject to human guesswork.
The score is close in the second half. The two teams have played a hard fought game. The sky is getting dark all the time and thunder rumbles in the distance.
The coaches and officials agree that unless they see lightning, the approaching storm is far enough away to finish the game. What they don't know is they are already in imminent danger. Thunder always means lightning...even if you can't see it. This has always been one of the toughest calls in sports.
Nothing is the whole world is as important as a game in progress, and the temptation to finish is only human. But, no game needs to be a life or death decision.
Everyone, parents, players, referees, coaches, need to work together to assess the suitability of the weather while remembering that it is the final decision of the referee to decide if a game is going to continue.
This is a big responsibility for you referees, and you must take it seriously. Even if the danger to the players from lightning is relatively small, suspend the game and get off the field to a place of safety.
For the rest of you, if you are at a game where you feel the weather is unsafe but the referees will not suspend the game, you have every right to leave the game and take your kids with you. A loss by forfeit is the worst that can possibly occur if you leave a match before the referee has called for suspension. This is a relatively small price to pay when compared to the alternative.
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THE KANSAS CITY STAR, April 3, 1998, Friday
HEADLINE: When sports becomes life and death
BYLINE: MIKE HENDRICKS
No one could have predicted the lightning bolt that almost killed
a high school soccer player Monday afternoon, but someone should have
foreseen the danger.
Why were those kids out in that kind of weather in the first place?
That's the question parents have been asking since 14-year-old
Katie Zemel's heart and lungs stopped during a game between Blue
Valley North and Shawnee Mission South high schools.
We were under a tornado watch. It was raining - hard at times -
and we had been alerted repeatedly of the potential for thunder and
lightning.
Did no one have sense enough to come in out of the rain?
Well, no. This was soccer, and tradition holds that you play in
the rain at least until lightning is seen or thunder is heard.
Trouble is, lightning travels miles in an eye blink and is
especially hazardous at the beginning of a storm.
One weather forecaster said 3,000 lightning bolts struck in our
vicinity that day. Unfortunately, one of the first slammed into the
turf near Katie.
No one has affixed blame for her injuries. All concerned say they
followed proper procedures by not stopping the game earlier.
But why is it necessary to even take the chance by playing in a
driving rain?
Simple answer: Sports madness.
It's so all-consuming these days that the adults who run youth
sports have trouble placing athletic competition in a proper
perspective.
I'm not just talking about the high school level, but all junior
sports - the Little Leagues, too.
Storm threat? Try to get the game in, if you can. Got to build
that record, make that tournament. Give it your 110 percent.
It's a madness in which adults promote participation to the point
that nearly every other activity is secondary to soccer, hockey,
baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, and on and on.
Parents start their sons a year late in school so they'll be
bigger than their peers when it comes time for competition.
The madness fills leagues so full that practice fields and gyms
are forever booked up. Which means basketball practice for
grade-schoolers continues until 10 p.m. on some school nights, while
other kids get up before dawn so they can get rink time for hockey.
Sports is No. 1.
Skip practice for schoolwork, piano lessons, Scouts, church?
What's wrong with you, kid? You're going to let down your coach
and the team.
Winning may not be everything but being part of the team is, and
that means slogging across a rain-soaked soccer field without
complaint, when any fool knows you ought to be inside.
At the very moment Katie Zemel was somewhere between life and
death Monday afternoon, the Blue Springs and Shawnee Mission
Northwest girls soccer teams were playing at St.Thomas Aquinas High
School.
It had been raining hard there, also.
Some parents say they notified the referees that they had heard
thunder; yet the game went on. Then when they learned of the
lightning strike a few miles away, some Shawnee Mission Northwest
mothers pleaded for the game to stop.
"We told the referee that a girl was coming into the hospital
code blue," one mother said, "and this (spectator) overheard us and
said, 'Just because someone codes doesn't mean they're dead. "'
The spectator didn't want the game stopped, you see. There were
four minutes left. Blue Springs was behind 4-0.
How can you expect people to have sense enough to come in out of
the rain when they have no sense at all?
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Berea soccer player dies in lightning strike
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sep 6, 1996 - 18:42 EST) -- An 18-year-old Berea College woman soccer player died today after being struck by lightning during practice Thursday.
Haley Brooke Herring, of Piedmont, Ala. was struck just before 6 p.m. Thursday, the Fayette County Coroner's office reported. She was taken by ambulance to the burn unit at the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington, where she died about 6:20 a.m. today, said Fayette County Coroner Dennis Penn.
Witnesses said Herring and other members of the soccer team had left the practice field as a line of thunderstorms moved through the area Thursday evening. Herring was struck just after the team returned to the field, according to witnesses. No other players were reported injured.
College officials declined to release any details of the accident this morning. A Berea spokeswoman, Wanda Nelson, said there would be a statement later today.
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Additional Lightning Stories Everyone Should Read
by Victor Matheson
Minnesota SYRA
Reprinted from Soccer Times and Smoke Signals
The tragedy involving referee Scott Wade reminds me of two personal experiences. In June of 1991, as part of the Front Range Invitational Tournament in Colorado Springs, CO, I was officiating a match at the lower level of fields at the U.S. Air Force Academy. We could all see that bad weather was moving in-we had heard the thunder and had seen the flashes of lightning in the distance-but we all wanted to get in our games. The lightning seemed to be far away and none of us had seen lightning hit the ground anywhere nearby.
About midway through the second half of my game, the storm rolled over the mountains and lightning struck one of the upper fields. Scott Hamilton, an under-15 player from Denver, was directly hit by the blast. Although he survived, he was critically injured and has permanent physical disabilities, which have prevented him from returning to soccer in the five years since the incident. Three other players and the center referee, a good friend of mine, also were hospitalized after the same strike spread along the ground.
Two years ago, I suspended a high school game I was refereeing because of lightning in the distance and an impending storm. Both coaches disagreed with my decision-they argued that the lightning was still far away and posed no danger to the players or fans-and asked, impatiently, if I was going to restart the game anytime soon.
After waiting about 15 minutes, I was walking from my car to the field to discuss the situation with the coaches when lightning actually hit the stadium. Since both teams had been sent to the locker room, no one was hurt and the only damage done was to the stadium clock.
These two stories illustrate the important points about officiating. The primary role of the referee is to ensure the safety of the players; propoerly identifying safe playing conditions is one of the referee's most important duties.
As with the incident in Colorado, by the time you actually see lightning nearby, it may be too late. If you see lightning hit the ground within a mile or two of your location, you already have stayed outside too long. Soccer is only a game, and it's not worth dying for. Ask Mr. Hamilton if he thinks the extra few minutes of playing time back in 1991 were worth it.
The second story contains a message for both referees and coaches.
Referees, you are the ones who must make the decisions regarding the suitability of the playing conditions, and you should not succumb to pressure from the coaches when you think things are unsafe. Although it made me unpopular at the time, my decision to stop the game that night may have saved somebody's life.
Coaches, you need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You need to think about the safety of your players, not about the difficulty of rescheduling games or the hassle of coming out to play on a different night.
The coaches on the occasion two years ago were willing to put their players' lives in jeopardy because they didn't want to have to schedule a rematch. That seems a little silly, doesn't it?
Finally, I have a note for everyone-parents, players, referees and coaches. You need to work together to assess the suitability of the weather while remembering that it is the final decision of the referee to decide if a game is going to continue.
This is a big responsibility for you referees, and you must take it seriously. Even if the danger to the players from lightning is relatively small, suspend the game and get off the field to a place of safety.
For the rest of you, if you are at a game where you feel the weather is unsafe but the referees will not suspend the game, you have every right to leave the game and take your kids with you. A loss by forfeit is the worst that can possibly occur if you leave a match before the referee has called for suspension. This is a relatively small price to pay when compared to the alternative.
Colombian soccer player dies three days after being hit by lightning
Associated Press Oct. 27, 2002 3:49 p.m. BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)The 24-year-old Cordoba had three heart attacks as a result of Thursday's lightning strike. A hospital spokesman said he died of "renal, pulmonary, cardiovascular and cerebral complications."
Hermam Gaviria, a teammate of Cordoba with Deportivo Cali and member of Columbia's 1994 World Cup team, was killed by the lightning strike.
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