Lightning hits teen in chest on Florida beach, then shoots out his foot, family says
A lightning strike hit a Texas teen vacationing on a Florida beach last week, his family says.
Jacob Brewer and his family, who live in Fort Worth, had just enjoyed a day at the beach when they began walking to get ice cream Thursday afternoon, his mother, Barbara, said on a GoFundMe page. She noticed a storm in the distance as they walked across the sand.
“The next thing I knew all of us were on the ground,” she said. “My ear was ringing (and) I had no idea what had happened. I look over and Jacob was foaming at the mouth.”
The family’s beautiful day on Siesta Key off the coast of Sarasota quickly turned into a life-or-death situation for the 14-year-old boy.
His mother said she saw her son collapse with a hole in his shirt after hearing a loud bang, according to a Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office police report.
“I was walking ahead of them and I saw the flash of light,” Jacob’s father, Jeremiah Brewer, told WFLA. “And I could smell the singed air around me and then this instant incredible crack.”
A sheriff’s deputy met Jacob as he was being carried from the beach to a roadway, police say. The deputy performed CPR on Jacob until an ambulance arrived to transport him to a Tampa hospital, police say.
“The doctor told me I was going to lose my son, but we had faith and we just prayed,” Brewer said on the GoFundMe page.
Jacob underwent surgery to restore circulation in his body. Photos posted on the GoFundMe page show burns on his chest and foot, where the lightning strike apparently shot out of his body.
He was expected to have surgery Tuesday on cuts the doctors made to increase circulation, WWSB reported.
According to Florida State University, the state is the “lightning capital,” where the chance of being struck is 1 in 3,000 in a lifetime. Florida accounts for 16% of lightning deaths in the U.S., according to the university.
“They say your chances of being struck by lightning is 1 in 3000,” Jacob’s mother wrote. “Well, Jacob has always told us he has bad luck, and we would tell him no there is no such thing. After this I am sure he will try to tell us again.”
This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Lightning hits teen in chest on Florida beach, then shoots out his foot, family says."