Members of Texas family were injured on July 8th in a lightning strike at Mills Lake.
By John Cordsen of the Estes Park Trail Gazette
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Texas family and their friend escaped serious injury Tuesday following a lightning strike that struck the ground near them while they were hiking in the Mills Lake area. According to a Rocky Mountain National Park spokesperson, the lightning struck the ground near the group of eight people, knocking three individuals down.
Two of the three were men, one a 46-year-old and one a 52-year-old. The woman was reported to be the wife of the 46-year-old. Her age was not given. The three suffered minor injuries when they hit the ground.
The two men suffered minor burns to their feet and the woman suffered minor burns on her arm. The three victims were walking down the trail when Park officials contacted them. They received minor first aid treatment at the trailhead but declined further medical treatment.
The family of seven and a friend from Houston, Texas were standing near Mills Lake when the strike occurred. Park dispatch received a cell phone call at 12:20 p.m. that three people had been struck by lightning near Mills Lake in the Glacier Gorge area of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mills Lake is approximately 2.8 miles from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead.
Responding Park rangers were told that four, not three people had been struck by lightning. It turned out that there was no fourth victim.
According to Park officials, this was the first lightning strike in Rocky Mountain National Park involving people since a hiker died in July 2000 on Longs Peak.
(There has been at least one lightning death on the Diamond in 2002 and a number of minor strikes that have hit people since I moved here in 1999.- eli)
 A storm brewing over the Diamond on Longs Peak.
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