A Florida sheriff’s deputy encountered a dangerous situation on Sunday when his patrol vehicle was struck by lightning.
Walton County, which is in the Florida panhandle, battled a storm on Sunday that sent one sheriff’s deputy to the hospital after his patrol vehicle was struck by lightning. The Walton County Fire Rescue transported the officer to Sacred Heart hospital, where he is expected to make a full recovery. The Walton County Sheriff’s Office posted details about the bizarre incident, including a picture of the officer’s patrol vehicle, on its Facebook page on Sunday evening.
“Today, a Walton County Sheriff’s Office deputy was driving south on 331 S near Sherwood Drive when his patrol vehicle was struck by lightning,” the post read.
Public Information Officer Corey Dobridnia said the officer’s vehicle was struck when he was on his way to patrol his district. She told Newsweek it is the first time a Walton County deputy’s vehicle has been struck by lightning.
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The deputy is expected to make a full recovery and was conscious and talking as of Sunday evening. However, the lightning strike “fried” his cruiser’s electrical system, according to the Facebook post. The Facebook post has received more than 2,000 likes and has been shared 1,600 times as of Monday afternoon.
The post also detailed how the deputy was not the only one requiring rescue from a lightning strike on Sunday.
Deputies responded to a water rescue at Morrison Springs earlier in the day after a woman had “possibly been struck by lightning while in the water”, according to the post. Bystanders performed CPR, and the woman was transported to the hospital by Walton Air Rescue.
The woman’s condition is unknown, but Newsweek reached out to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office by email for comment.
“Storms can be unpredictable and come up quickly. Please use your best judgment and get to a safe area when clouds roll in,” the sheriff’s office wrote in the Facebook post.
Lightning occurs frequently in Florida because the state’s heat, humidity and sea breeze create the ideal components for thunderstorms.
Florida tops the list in the number of people who are struck and killed by lightning each year, according to a report by AccuWeather. Florida ranks fourth in the number of lightning flashes each year—beat out by Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma—but the dense population and the frequency of which people spend time outdoors in the Sunshine State contribute to the lightning strike fatalities.
The average American has a 1 in 5,000 chance of being struck by lightning according to a report by National Geographic. Lightning strikes kill 2,000 people each year, according to the report, but as many as 90 percent of lightning strike victims survive the encounter according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
In 2019, a Florida man was killed while riding his motorcycle in Volusia County after lightning struck his helmet and caused a fatal crash.
In 2021, Newsweek reported that a woman and her niece survived after both being struck by lightning while swimming in Naples, Florida.
In 2022, a Florida mother was killed when she was struck by lightning when walking in Winter Springs with her daughter and their dog.