Lightning strike on Venice Beach in Los Angeles kills one, injures 13

A person has been killed and 13 injured after being struck by lightning on Venice Beach in Los Angeles.

A 20-year-old man died after being hit while swimming in the sea after an electrical summer storm passed over the area.

As many as 14 people were hit, 13 at the beach and one man in a separate incident on a golf course on Catalina Island off the Californian coast.

Katherine Main, a Los Angeles fire spokeswoman, said the injured had effects that ranged from anxiety to needing resuscitation, though not all may have actually been hit.

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The BBC reports that two of those injured are in a critical condition, while the Daily Telegraph reports that four people were treated at the scene and the rest taken to hospital.

Witness Steve Christensen said his friend tried to help when lifeguards began searching for a missing swimmer.

According to the Guardian, he said: "He went out to the water to find him and walked right into him. He was face down on the bottom."

Christensen added that his friend pulled the man from the water, and lifeguards began trying to resuscitate him before he was taken away to hospital.

According to CNN, John Kades of the Los Angeles Coroner's office, said it's too early to determine whether the man died as a result of "a lightning strike, drowning, or being trampled by the crowd".

Back in January, three people died when lightning hit a beach in Argentina.

22 other people were injured when the bolt of lightning struck the beach packed with tourists.

One witness toldSky News: "The lightning hit and then there were people lying all over the beach."

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