A lightning strike at a New Jersey archery club tragically killed one person and injured more than a dozen others in Jackson Township Wednesday evening. The Jackson Police Department has identified the individual who died as Robert Montgomery, a 61-year old archery instructor and a member of the Black Night Bowbenders who was volunteering at the time. Several of the others injured were Cub Scouts, some as young as 7 years of age, according to ABC-7 News.
At least six people were hospitalized after the lightning strike, and one was taken to the Livingston Burn Center with more serious injuries. Their current medical status remains unclear. As officials try to make sense of the seemingly random weather event — witnesses said it wasn’t even raining at the time — one man is being hailed as a hero for his quick response and attempts to save lives.
“It was insanely loud … like the Earth exploded and it was dirt flying, flying everywhere,” Gene Grodzki, a longtime member of the Black Night Bowbenders and a spokesperson for the local club, told ABC News of the experience. He said he had just walked away from a group of children who were target practicing when the strike occurred. “When it hit and I turned around, it was at least seven, maybe eight people on the ground flat.”
He said one of those people was Montgomery, who had been helping the group with target practice. Grodzki went over immediately and started doing CPR. He said Montgomery was “pretty much unresponsive” by that point, but he continued chest compressions until first responders arrived.
Aside from Grodzki’s comments to reporters, the Black Night Bowbenders Club has not released any official statements to news outlets or made any posts about the incident. However, another archery club based less than 30 miles away, in Wrightstown, posted about the tragedy on Facebook. The club explained that Grodzki was actually hit by the lightning, too, before he got up and started administering CPR.
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“This person, Gene Grodzki, [we are] very proud to know you and have you in our Archery Family,” reads the post by Garden State Archers. “You have our thanks and gratitude.”
The club also cleared up some rumors that have spread on social media — namely that the Cub Scouts and instructors “weren’t caught in a thunderstorm,” and that it was just one bolt of lightning that struck the ground.
New Jersey’s state climatologist David Robinson called the lightning strike a rare occurrence in an interview Thursday. AccuWeather reports that it was part of a larger system of thunderstorms that moved in across the Mid-Atlanic region.
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