Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Child critical after lightning strikes Paris birthday party
PARIS — Eight children and three adults were struck by lightning Saturday in a Paris park after a sudden spring storm sent a bolt crashing down upon a children’s birthday party, a spokesman for Paris’ fire service said. He credited an off-duty firefighter with playing a critical role in getting immediate medical help to the victims, but one child remains in critical condition.
Another group of people at a children’s soccer match in western Germany were also hit by lightning Saturday afternoon, leaving three adults seriously injured.
The birthday group had sought shelter under a tree at Park Monceau, a northwest Paris park popular with well-to-do families, when a lightning bolt touched down, according to Paris fire service spokesman Eric Moulin. He put the children’s ages at around 9.
Moulin said Cmdr. Pascal Gremillet, an off-duty firefighter, was visiting a museum nearby when he noticed the commotion and discovered nine of the 11 victims lying unconscious. He immediately went to work.
“He saw who was the most seriously injured. He did a quick triage of the victims. He did first aid. He alerted the rescue services,” Moulin said. “Without his actions, it would have been much worse.”
Gremillet told journalists that one child’s heart had stopped beating when he arrived.
“I did first aid (and) a heart massage,” he said. The other children “were in shock.”
Dr. Pierre Carli, an emergency medical services official, later told journalists that for one of the children, “the prognosis is probably more serious and he is now hospitalized on life support.”
For the seven other children, the news was “rather good,” Carli said. Their injuries were not considered life threatening.
He said the condition of three of the more seriously injured children was improving, All seven children were placed under observation, Carli said. He identified the injured adults as two men and a woman who is the mother of some of the children.
Storm warnings were in effect across parts of France on Saturday, and the weather had violent consequences elsewhere in Europe.
More than 30 people were taken to the hospital after lighting struck Saturday at the end of a children’s soccer match in western Germany, police said.
Three adults were seriously injured in the incident in the town of Hoppstaedten, police said — including the 45-year-old referee, who suffered a cardiac arrest after being hit directly by lightning and had to be revived by onlookers and a doctor.