Lightning Strike in Gilmanton - 23 sent to Hospital

[mcdude]

WMUR

BELMONT, N.H. —Twenty-three Boy Scouts and three adults were transported to hospitals in Concord and Laconia after a lightning strike on their camp.

According to the Boy Scouts, a major thunderstorm hit Camp Bell on the Griswold Scout Reservation Monday evening.

No one was directly hit but shortly afterward, several people reported some tingling and burning sensations.
They were triaged at the Belmont Fire Station.
Ambulances from several Lakes Region towns responded to assist.
Everybody was conscious and stable, according to Greg Osborn, director of marketing for the Daniel Webster Council, Boy Scouts of America
Osborn said all the Scouts were at the camp site and under shelter at the time of the strike

Read more: http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/sev...#ixzz2XBlb5Mjc

Camp Bell is located on Manning Lake in Gilmanton

[tummyman]

Patients were transported to Lakes Region, Franklin, Concord, Huggins, and Speare.

[upthesaukee]

Response was amazing, and through it all, the LRFD dispatcher was so calm, and seemed to be anticipating needs, and keeping track of what hospital could take how many patients, and kept Belmont Command appraised. Great job by all concerned.

I'm sure these kids just started their camp, and hope that they can get back quickly and enjoy their camp and its experiences.

Hopefully they will not suffer any lasting effects.

[mcdude]

Laconia Daily Sun

Lightning strikes Gilmanton Boy Scout camp

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Details

Published Date Tuesday, 25 June 2013 03:23

GILMANTON — Twenty-three boy scouts hunkered under a canopy during a thunderstorm suffered a variety of burns last night around 7 p.m. when lightening struck perilously close to the shelter.
All 23 were taken by a Boy Scouts of America Daniel Webster Council bus to the Belmont Fire Station, where emergency workers from communities as far away as Franklin evaluated them and sent them to various area hospitals.
The boys, who appeared to be between the ages of 14 and 17, were all able to walk out of the van on their own power. One boy needed the assistance of another scout to get to one of the waiting ambulances.
It was not known as of press time where the boys are from.
According to Belmont Fire Chief Dave Parenti, the boys and their counselors were at Camp Bell, which is part of Griswold Scout Reservation north of Gilmanton Iron Works. He said they were about 1/4 of a mile into the woods when the storm stuck.
Camp Bell is located on the west shore of Manning Lake. It is to the west of the more widely known Hidden Valley Scount Camp, which is located between Lake Eileen and Sunset Lake. Both camps are on the Griswold Reservation and both are owned and operated by the Daniel Webster Council of Boy Scouts of America.
Parenti said some of the boys were knocked off their feet by the force of the strike.
Councilors said the group waited out the storm and all were able to walk to an area where they were loaded into the bus.
Parenti said the call originated when councilors called Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia and told them they were bringing 23 boys who had been struck by lightening to the emergency room.
Rather than have all of them at one emergency room at the same time, officials set up a triage area at the Belmont Fire Station — which was central to the Lakes Region and closest to where the lightening struck — where all the boys were evaluated according to their condition and sent to areas hospitals including LRGH, Franklin Regional Hospital, Speare Memorial Hospital in Plymouth and Concord Hospital.
He said because all the boys are minors and all could have possibly suffered harm from the lightening, all will be taken to one of the state's hospitals and evaluated.
While councilors called parents to tell them where their children were, ambulances lined up around the fire station. Belmont Police coordinated traffic and directed those parents who did come to the fire station to the hospital where their children were taken.
Six of the boys, said Parenti, suffered burns across their chests and were the first to be transported. He explained that the chances of cardiac arrest increases with electrical shocks to the chest.
Many of the other boys, as well as three councilors, suffered a variety of burns, mostly to their feet and extremities. One counselor appeared to have a severe burn to his right leg but he declined treatment until all of the boys were set.
For what seemed like it would be a chaotic night, things ran very smoothly at the fire station. The scouts, their councilors, and emergency personnel were all calm. Each boy got of the bus with the appropriate identifying paperwork that would be given to the receiving hospital. Ambulances lined up around the building to collect their patients — two per ambulance — while EMTs and paramedics evaluated them as they got off the bus. An evaluation center was established in the training room at the station.
Gilmanton Fire Chief Paul Hempel III helped coordinate activity inside the station while Parenti and Sanbornton Fire Chief Paul Dexter worked the command post.
Belmont Selectman Jon Pike, who was at the fire station with Parenti, said he was really proud of the Belmont Police and Fire Department and the response and assistance from the surrounding communities.
"These guys and girls really have it together," Pike said.
The status of the boys at press time was unavailable

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by upthesaukee

Response was amazing, and through it all, the LRFD dispatcher was so calm, and seemed to be anticipating needs, and keeping track of what hospital could take how many patients, and kept Belmont Command appraised. Great job by all concerned.

I'm sure these kids just started their camp, and hope that they can get back quickly and enjoy their camp and its experiences.

Hopefully they will not suffer any lasting effects.

We have a monthly event at Gilford Community Church called "Mens Night Out" . We always have some sort of "speaker", last month the speaker was the director of the LRFD. That facility is actually a model for other such systems from all over the country. Folks come to study the system here in the Lakes Region.

Amazing operation..

http://www.lrmfa.org/lrmfaa/

[polarisman14]

All in all it was pretty calm over on my side of Gilmanton, but there were definitely a few close strikes--I'm willing to bet one of them was the one that hit their camp. Fingers crossed for all those affected. I used to be in the Boy Scouts and it can be a little hairy getting stuck out in those kinds of situations.

[Winnisquamguy]

Originally Posted by upthesaukee

Response was amazing, and through it all, the LRFD dispatcher was so calm, and seemed to be anticipating needs, and keeping track of what hospital could take how many patients, and kept Belmont Command appraised. Great job by all concerned.

I'm sure these kids just started their camp, and hope that they can get back quickly and enjoy their camp and its experiences.

Hopefully they will not suffer any lasting effects.

My godchild is there thankfully he was not one of the ones that got hurt. All campers arrived on Sunday and stay until Saturday. I also hope for a speedy recovery to the 26 victims.

[MikeF-NH]

no "recovery" needed. All hospital visits were purely precautionary. Some minor burns reported but no major injuries.

A scary incident for sure but handled well by all involved.

[Winnisquamguy]

Originally Posted by MikeF-NH

no "recovery" needed. All hospital visits were purely precautionary. Some minor burns reported but no major injuries.

A scary incident for sure but handled well by all involved.

From WMUR.....


GILMANTON, N.H. —Most of the Boy Scouts hurt in a lightning strike Monday night are out of the hospital.In all, 23 Boy Scouts between the ages of 12 and 17 were hurt when lightning hit Camp Bell on the Griswald Scout Reservation in Gilmanton.
By noon Tuesday, all but five scouts were released from the hospital. The remaining five scouts are expected to be released later in the day.
When the lightning struck, the group was in a heavily wooded area. At first, everyone seemed fine.
“We knew that some people had been shaken because it was so close and there was such a loud clap of thunder along with this lightning bolt,” said Gerry Boyle, the course director.
Boyle said the scouts didn't see the storm coming. A group of 121 people, including 84 scouts, were on a mountaintop taking part in a leadership training course.
“We got word over the radio from the camp staff that there was a storm rapidly approaching,” said Boyle.
The camp staff had been tracking the severe thunderstorms on radar. Boyle said scouts, staffers and volunteers moved to shelter.

Read more: http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/mos...#ixzz2XFYrTVyH

[SIKSUKR]

I have to wonder that in this day and age of immediate access to radar info and warnings via your phone,why these kids were in this situation.Is there not any shelter where they camp?Were they out hiking away from it?I work outside and have to stay in the weather but I sure as heck was watching the radar to see whats coming.The forecasts have had t-storms up for days.Just seems like a little more pro active watch should be in effect with all these kids under your watch.

[Just Sold]

Originally Posted by SIKSUKR

I have to wonder that in this day and age of immediate access to radar info and warnings via your phone,why these kids were in this situation.Is there not any shelter where they camp?Were they out hiking away from it?I work outside and have to stay in the weather but I sure as heck was watching the radar to see whats coming.The forecasts have had t-storms up for days.Just seems like a little more pro active watch should be in effect with all these kids under your watch.

The Scouts do not get a chance to watch TV when at camp. Camp staff keeps track of things outside of the camp.

From WMUR:

When the lightning struck, the group was in a heavily wooded area. At first, everyone seemed fine.
“We knew that some people had been shaken because it was so close and there was such a loud clap of thunder along with this lightning bolt,” said Gerry Boyle, the course director.
Boyle said the scouts didn't see the storm coming. A group of 121 people, including 84 scouts, were on a mountaintop taking part in a leadership training course.
“We got word over the radio from the camp staff that there was a storm rapidly approaching,” said Boyle.
The camp staff had been tracking the severe thunderstorms on radar. Boyle said scouts, staffers and volunteers moved to shelter.

Read more: http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/mos...#ixzz2XGVlHVIb

[ApS]

Originally Posted by MikeF-NH

no "recovery" needed. All hospital visits were purely precautionary. Some minor burns reported but no major injuries.

A scary incident for sure but handled well by all involved.

To get "burns", that lightning bolt must have been very close.

I've had lightning strike closely—twice. Maybe, it's the reason I'm the way I am today.

1) The first time was during a tropical storm, when I'd just touched a concrete parking bumper, and a lightning bolt struck the corner of the one-story business I'd just pulled into. Being in a car, I should have gone uninjured, but I'd just reached up to close the sunroof, but the flash caused me to pull back my arm. I had a major case of "tennis-shoulder" for weeks.

We have been warned that lightning can strike 10-miles from a storm, but I suspect that it can be much further away.

2) The second time was on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee. The storm had passed by a ½-hour earlier when "a bolt from the blue" suddenly struck on the opposite side of a giant Hemlock tree I was seated under. The "bang" was extremely muted by the immense size of the Hemlock, but I remember the bright flash, and that the ground shook once, so I returned—completely unfazed—to my typing.

It was when I wandered to the other side of the Hemlock, that I was greeted with a highly-unusual sight: the branches of the understory of trees were "decorated" everywhere with 5-inch ringlets of birchbark.



Looking up, I saw that "bolt-from-the-blue" had struck a 5-inch diameter paper-birch tree—whose roots led directly to the lake. The bolt's pathway had cut down one side of the tree, and had severed dozens of those ringlets to fly away!

That was three years ago, and that birch tree is still growing well. But the "downside" was that the birch tree was only 15-feet from the Hemlock.

[SIKSUKR]

Originally Posted by Just Sold

The Scouts do not get a chance to watch TV when at camp. Camp staff keeps track of things outside of the camp.

From WMUR:
[LEFT]When the lightning struck, the group was in a heavily wooded area. At first, everyone seemed fine.
“.
Boyle said the scouts didn't see the storm coming. A group of 121 people, including 84 scouts, were on a mountaintop taking part in a leadership training course.
“We got word over the radio from the camp staff that there was a storm rapidly approaching,” said Boyle.
[COLOR=#333333]The camp staff had been tracking the severe thunderstorms on radar. Boyle said scouts, staffers and volunteers moved to shelter

I never mentioned anything about the scouts watching tv. This article sort of makes my point. If they got word from camp staff that a storm was approaching then they obviously had the ability, and were, watching for severe weather on radar as I suggested they should be. How would they not know that thunderstorms were a high possibility for that day. Knowing what you just showed me in that WMUR report, I question even more why they would lead 84 scouts to a mountaintop with approaching weather. Before I would hike a mt by myself I would certainly be aware of the forecast wouldn't you?