BOSTON — A quick-thinking nurse helped save the life of a woman who is believed to have been struck by lightning on a Massachusetts beach. A CNN report by Laura Haefeli detailed how residents stepped in when it mattered most.
On Saturday, storms rolled in toward Savin Hill Beach in Boston, bringing thunder and lightning.
"I heard the bolt of lightning. It was so loud," resident Kenneth Osherow said. "A fire truck came by 30 seconds later, then an ambulance, then another ambulance ... a police car."
The sound rattled neighbors, who knew it hit close to their homes.
The Boston Police Department said they got a call for help around 3:30 p.m. after a woman was hit by lightning while walking her dog on the beach.
Neighbors said they rushed to help the woman. They carried her to a porch to protect her from the rain and then a nurse started CPR.
"She had a burn wound on her chest and her pants were burned off of her and you could smell it," Tracy Cronin said. "I was in the front of my house. I came over here and started helping with compressions."
Cronin is an ICU nurse at Boston Children's Hospital. While she and her boyfriend, an ER nurse, were waiting for help to get there, they took turns performing CPR for about 15 minutes.
"Initially, we didn't get a pulse but then we finally got a pulse. She wasn't awake, though. She was down for quite a while," Cronin said. "Never seen anything like this happen."
The woman's condition is not known. The CDC said the odds of being struck by lightning in any year is about one in a million.