Two young boys were rushed to hospital in critical condition Wednesday after
seemingly harmless overcast skies flared abruptly and sent a lightning bolt
crashing into a Toronto-area soccer field.
The mother of one of the boys, ages 4
and 6, was in stable condition following the lightning strike in Brampton, Ont.,
some 45 kilometres northwest of Toronto.
Allan Hughes, whose home backs onto
the park, was left terribly shaken hours after he attempted to resuscitate one
of the boys, who didn't appear to respond to CPR.
"There was nothing. There were no
signs of life," Hughes, 25, said, pointing to a small but deep crater in the
ground where he found the group lying.
"His little eyes were wide open, blue
eyes just staring at me."
It was at about 2:30 p.m., when
Hughes was sitting at home eating lunch when he was startled by an "abnormally
loud bang."
"It was the loudest bang I've ever
heard," he said.
Soon after he heard a woman
screaming, and shouting "somebody call 911." Hughes dialled 911 on his cellphone
as he jumped his own fence and ran to the middle of the field.
A woman was lying on the ground, but
appeared to be moving slightly, and another man was already performing CPR on
one of the boys, so he frantically tried to save the other. Paramedics arrived
soon after and took over, Hughes said.
Another woman in the field - who
witnesses said was a babysitter - and two other children appeared to be fine, he
added.
Connie Denbok, whose home also
borders the soccer field, said it was partly cloudy at the time with no rain,
but there was a distant rumbling of thunder.
Then Denbok said she saw "what looked
like a fireball outside my window," followed immediately by a clap of thunder
and screaming. She hurried to the field and sat with the three who appeared
unhurt, though she said they were understandably quite upset.
Both boys were in serious condition
when they were transported to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, said Brad
Bowie, a spokesman for the Peel Regional Paramedic Service.
The younger boy was transported by
land ambulance with a critical care team while the older boy was airlifted out,
Bowie said.
The woman was to remain at the
Brampton Civic Hospital, where the three arrived at about 2:55 p.m.
The Brampton incident comes just days
after a series of violent thunderstorms roared through the Toronto area,
bringing heavy rains and numerous lightning strikes.
By late afternoon the park had been
reopened to the public and games of a children's soccer league went ahead under
sunny skies.
The storm, which rumbled over
Brampton from the north started as a shower which flared abruptly mid-afternoon
said Environment Canada Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Geoff Coulson.
"We can see some of these storms
develop relatively quickly," he said. "Unfortunately in that time, say an hour
and a bit, was when it moved over the field and caused a lightning strike in the
Brampton park."
After rolling thunder and about 20
flashes of lightning, the storm weakened to a shower as it moved southwest
towards the Oakville and Burlington areas.
Coulson said lightning either struck
the woman and her children directly or hit nearby around 2:30 p.m.
"This was a relatively brief event,"
he said.
Those close enough to hear thunder
when they see the skies go grey should seek the best shelter they can either in
a well built structure or in a vehicle with a metal top, said Coulson.
People should remain in their
shelters for 30 minutes after the last rumble of thunder to stay safe, he said.
- With files from Diana Mehta and
Brian Pardoe in Toronto