A fisherman from San Andres who was found dead submerged in the sea off barangay Yocti at 11 AM of June 20, 2024 was apparently hit by lightning during a thunderstorm in the area at the time.
This was disclosed by the personnel of the San Andres police station who verified the reported drowning incident at the shoreline of the barangay.
The report said that the body of the victim, Alex Osorio Regalado, 46, with live-in partner and resident of Bon-ot, had burns while the half-submerged banca on which he was found had damaged parts.
Responding personnel from the police station and the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), together with Yocti barangay officials, found the victim still in the boat but with his body and head submerged in the water.
He was brought to the Juan M. Alberto Memorial District Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival by Dr. Aldem Boñales due to asphyxia secondary to drowning.
Regalado is the first fisherman in recent years to die from a lightning strike.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), while lightning doesn’t strike the ocean as much as land, when it does, it spreads out over the water, which acts as a conductor.
It can hit boats that are nearby and electrocute fish that are near the surface, it said in its website.
Those who are at sea during a thunderstorm are advised to get out of the water and take shelter in a building or in a car.
Those at sea should head back to a shelter on land but if the shore is out of reach, they should drop anchor, remove any jewelry, put on life jackets and stay low at the center of the boat.
While it lasts only a millisecond, a flash of lightning can contain up to a billion bolts and is thought to produce up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, enough to power 3.4 million homes for a year.