The accident occurred after 12:00. Lightning struck four children who were on a strawberry plantation. One of the girls, who was wheeling a bicycle, suffered the most serious injuries. The injured girl was transported by helicopter to a specialist hospital.
The other three children were taken to the hospital in Bolesławiec. Their lives are not in danger. As Waldemar Krajewski, the on-duty doctor in the pediatric ward, explains, the injured children suffered injuries related more to the fall than to the lightning strike. “When the lightning struck, the children fell over,” Krajewski says. “The boy suffered a fractured shoulder blade, and one girl strained her cervical spine. The third girl has a minor burn on her lower leg,” he adds. According to the doctor, the children will remain in the hospital for two or three days.
“I was at home. My daughter went to pick strawberries at 7:00 in the morning,” the mother of one of the injured girls told IstotneInformacje.pl. “Suddenly, I received a phone call. The children were already getting on their bicycles. They were about to return home when they were struck,” she adds.
“It happened in an instant, literally a second,” says one of the girls who was struck. “I was wheeling my bicycle and suddenly I fell to the ground, with the bicycle on top of me. And I saw some kind of light,” she adds. The injured girl did not even hear thunder. For several minutes, she could not move. She felt only pain in her neck.
“We left the field. We went to get some money,” recounts the second girl. “We wanted to get on our bicycles, but it started flashing more and more. I only saw something flash and heard a bang. I don’t remember anything else,” she adds.
The field owners notified the rescuers about the incident. “Everything indicates that this was an unfortunate accident,” says Marek Śledziona of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Bolesławiec.
Updated 2008-06-16 10:06
A fifth child, who had been accompanying the four injured children, was taken to the hospital. After the accident yesterday, it was decided that the boy could remain at home, but when he began losing consciousness in the afternoon, he was taken to the hospital for observation.
(information KD/KG/GA)