Man injured by lightning blast is recovering

Howard County fire officials received a call at 1:45 p.m. Thursday for a man who suffered blast injuries from a lightning strike in Patapsco Valley State Park in Woodstock near the border between Howard and Baltimore counties.

The man was inches away from a tree that was struck by lightning and suffered injuries from the blast, according to Adam Nolder, a spokesman for the Howard County Fire Department. Fire officials found the man in the woods around 2:20 p.m. and immediately began transporting him to University of Maryland Shock Trauma.

The victim survived and was recovering in the hospital, Sunday evening. The injured man, whose name has not been released, was conscious and breathing when officials found him a half mile into the woods, Nolder said. “non-life threatening.” Police blocked off a large section of the parking lot in the 600 block of East 33rd St. in North Baltimore.

A half-dozen police cars and a crime scene van were parked in front of the Giant. A handful of officers gathered at the closed entrance, which was cordoned off by police tape.

15-year-old killed in Edgewood shooting

A 15-year-old was shot and killed early Thursday morning in Edgewood in what police said was a targeted incident.

The Harford County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call for a shooting at 12:15 a.m. in the 1900 block of Eloise Lane, said Kyle Andersen, public information officer for the sheriff’s office.

Whenthey arrived deputies encountered a large group of people in front of a house then found the teen, Khalil Lephonzo Johnson of Edgewood, inside suffering from a gunshot wound to the upper body, Col. William Davis, chief deputy of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, said during a news conference Thursday.

Johnson was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was pronounced dead, Andersen said. “It looks like he was targeted, this was not a random act of violence,” Davis said.

Multiple shots were fired during the incident, but Johnson was only hit once, Davis said. Detectives determined Johnson was shot in the area of Brookside Drive and Eloise Lane.

Investigators returned to the neighborhood Thursday to search again, talk to neighbors and others in the neighborhood, “trying to figure out what the motive behind the shooting was and any other kind of evidence,” Davis said.