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Storm's lightning strikes 3

Bystanders try to save a teenager. His mother wasn't knocked out.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN and S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published July 21, 2007

Under dark skies in eastern Hillsborough County, lightning started around noon and lasted for a couple of hours.
	[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke]

ADVERTISEMENT [Family photo] Jonathan Farmer with his granddaughter Kaylee. Farmer, 51, was struck by lightning while trying to get into his car at a Sam's Club in Brandon.

TREASURE ISLAND - As thunder boomed and rain fell Friday morning, the crowd at Treasure Island Municipal Beach headed for shelter. Within minutes, the only people left on the sand were a mother and son walking toward their beach resort.

Suddenly, bolts of lightning blasted the ground. Then the procession of loud booms gave way to screams.

Maureen Machajewski, 46, and her 16-year-old son Sam Santilli were struck by lightning around 10:34 a.m., authorities said. She was still conscious and yelling for help, but her son was unresponsive on the ground.

Several bystanders rushed to help, performing CPR on the youth until paramedics arrived at the beach near 112th Avenue. One man said the boy's clothes were shredded and a large circular burn was seared on his chest. His eyes were rolled back into his head.

They were taken to local hospitals. Sam remained unconscious at All Children's Hospital late Friday, said Jeff Jensen, Treasure Island's public information officer.

Just an hour and a half later, another lightning bolt hit a 51-year-old man at a Sam's Club parking lot in Brandon. Jonathan Farmer was sore and had six staples in his scalp from falling, but in good condition.

The lightning strikes came from the same system: a long, slender line of thunderstorms that rolled through the Tampa Bay region Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service. Meteorologist Nick Petro said the storms entered Pinellas County around 9:30 a.m., and it took about four hours for the 40-mile-long system to pass into Polk County and dissipate.

The thunderstorms were not especially strong or powerful, Petro said. As for the lightning, he said: "There's no rhyme or reason for where it hits."

Florida is the country's lightning capital, and it strikes Central Florida more at this time of year than anywhere else.

- - -

Machajewski and her son checked into a poolside efficiency-sized room at the Tahitian Resort on Thursday and planned to leave on Sunday, according to front desk clerk Nancy Price. Maureen was in town from Texas, and Sam lives in Tampa, according to Treasure Island authorities.

Rob Johnson, 49, who was riding the storm out in the municipal shelter near a concession stand, said the two had been close to the water when the storm hit, and were still about 100 yards away from any shelter when they were struck. They were near a volleyball court, walking in a diagonal line to their resort.

He remembers running and trying to carry the boy at first, but failing. Then he began to perform CPR, along with another woman. A third woman eventually arrived to help.

As they performed compressions on the boy's burned stomach, his mother lay on the ground weeping hysterically. Lightning bolts still shot from the sky. Rain poured on them. Sam's skin had a blueish tint.

"She was screaming," Johnson said. "She kept saying 'Oh my God, oh my God!' "

Johnson said he couldn't feel a pulse on Sam before the paramedics came. Orange fluid came out of Sam's nose and mouth when they rolled him on his side.

"It was terrible," Johnson said.

Jessica Taylor, who was also at the beach, said she took a towel and put it on him.

"That's all I could do," she said.

- - -

About an hour and a half later, Sandy Farmer and her husband Jonathan were leaving a Sam's Club in Brandon at 2021 West Brandon Blvd.

She waited with the shopping cart while he ran out into the storm to get the car.

Thunder crashed: KA-BOOM! Everyone screamed. Sandy screamed, too. "Wow," she thought. "That was close."

She waited and waited. Jonathan didn't come back.

Finally, she called his cell phone. He picked up, his voice faint. "I think I've been hit by lightning," he said.

He came shuddering out of the rain, helped by a stranger who had seen him fall. He was pale, she said, shaking all over and numb on the left side.

He was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where doctors found a neat hole burned into his left thumb and another on the side of his left foot, Sandy and her son Kris, 25, said. They also found the dime-size hole the bolt scorched in his sock on its way out.

Doctors put six staples in his scalp where he cut himself when he fell. They say he'll be sore, but probably all right.

The Farmers founded a church for bikers in Plant City, and Sandy teaches a class on the Book of Revelations at Bell Shoals Baptist Church. Still, the family tries not to read into the accident.

"This is how God made the world," Kris Farmer said. "Lightning is going to strike, storms are going to come."

Times writers Rebecca Catalanello, Joseph Schwartz, correspondent Eamonn Kneeshaw and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or 727 893-8472.

Fast Facts:

To Stay Safe

Authorities say you should head for shelter as soon as you hear thunder to stay safe for lightning. They say you should wait at least 30 minutes after hearing the last roll of thunder to come back outside.

Lightning Facts

- An average of 67 people are killed by lightning each year and about 300 are injured in the U.S.

- Lightning strikes the ground approximately 25 million times each year in the U.S.

- The chance of being killed or injured by lightning in the United States during a given year is one in 240,000.

- Over the entire year, the highest frequency of cloud-to-ground lightning in the U.S. is in Florida, between Tampa and Orlando.

- Florida had 85 deaths from lightning from 1995 to 2005, ranking it No. 1.

Source: National Weather Service and NOAA.

[Last modified July 20, 2007, 23:58:01]