WATCH: Jonathan Hardman describes getting hit by lightning while hiking Mount Bierstadt, and how his dog Rambo may have saved his life. Steve Staeger reports.
GEORGETOWN, Colo.– Lightning struck near the top of a more than 14,000-foot mountain popular with hikers, sending three people to hospitals and killing a dog, Colorado authorities said.
The victims were among about a dozen people who were just below the summit of Mount Bierstadt when lightning struck around 11:30 a.m. Sunday. A total of eight were injured, most of them knocked off their feet likely after being shocked indirectly by the lightning through the ground, said Dawn Wilson, a spokeswoman for Alpine Rescue, one of several groups that responded.
Jonathan Hardman was taken to the hospital in serious condition Sunday while his hiking companions Mary Prescott and Will Chandler were described as having non-life-threatening injuries.
Rescuers and an Army National Guard helicopter responded to the mountain about 64 kilometres west of Denver.
Eight adults were transported from the trailhead: five who refused further treatment and three who were taken to Denver-area hospitals, the Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office said.
Madeleine Ripley told KUSA that she was shocked by a strike while touching a rock.
“I felt lightning and I just started running back down and I kept going,” she said.
Hiker Pete Hunter told the station that the storm seemed to build right on the mountain rather than move in from the distance, which would have given hikers more warning.
Hardman said he was urging his dog Rambo to come down to where he was when the lightning hit.
“I was coaching my dog down, telling him to jump where I was. Next thing I know, I just wake up and I couldn’t move my hands or my arms or my legs,” he said.
Rambo did not survive the storm, and Hardman had to leave him behind as he hiked down to meet emergency personnel.
According to doctors, Hardman was hit directly by lightning, but most likely survived due to Rambo’s proximity.
“My doctors told me he shared that electric charge with me because he was right next to me,” he said. “He was right by my side. And if it weren’t for him, I might have had that whole thing in my body alone.”
Colorado’s mountain summits are usually rocky and exposed, making them prone to lightning strikes from thunderstorms that frequently develop on summer afternoons. Experts advise hikers to summit and to be on the way down by noon to avoid sudden storms.
On Saturday, a lightning strike killed a woman and injured several others who sought shelter under a tree in the Mogollon Rim in northern Arizona.
It wasn’t clear if that group was on exposed terrain. But the National Weather Service recommends that those who are exposed when a storm hits and are away from a vehicle to get away from summits, isolated trees and rocks and to crouch on their heels.
Mount Bierstadt, named for the western landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, is one of the most popular Colorado peaks to climb because the top can be reached after a 3-mile hike from a mountain pass accessible by car.
Colorado is one of the top states for lightning deaths in the past decade along with Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
– with files from Jenny Sung
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