ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A lightning strike injured two people at the Wekiva High School football game. It's the first game since a player from the school died during practice. At least one of the victims was touching a metal fence, when lighting struck near the football field, off North Hiawassee Road.
A man took most of the hit but he and the other victim will survive. It's believed the lightning hit a stadium light and the current traveled all the way down to the fence where the two were standing.
Chaos broke out at Wekiva High School in Orange County moments after lightning put an end to the Friday night football game.
Channel 9 Eyewitness News was covering the tribute game to fallen football player Oliver Louis who collapsed and died on the field earlier in the week. Minutes after the game between Wekiva and Apopka High Schools was suspended, a lightning bolt struck. Two people who were holding on to a fence took an indirect hit throwing them to the ground.
"I thought it was right next to us and then I saw the guy laying on the ground and we said let's run, let's get out of here," Gregory Sampson said.
Parent Gregory Sampson watched the school's medical staff carry a man and a woman into the locker room. Moments later paramedics transported both to the hospital. The woman appeared to be sitting up and alert.
"It's just too much right now, it's a lot to handle," Sampson said.
Orange County sheriff's deputies tried to get control of thousands of students. Orange County Public Schools area superintendent John Edwards says the priority was getting them to safety.
"You have a lot of students here who come, they don't have a ride home. Parents think they're here for the whole game. We want to make sure they're safe and they're in a place where they are supervised," John Edwards said.
First, there was the tragedy of losing a student and now this.
"Particularly in light of what happen here this week, you kind of feel like you're a little bit jinxed," Edwards said.
The district says the man hit was 26-year-old Cato Mott, a former Apopka High football player. The woman was a family member who suffered a burn to her foot.
Wekiva and Apopka high will try to play their game again Saturday at 10am.