A New Jersey police officer has been hailed as a hero after helping save the life of a father who was struck by lightning.
Woodbridge Township employee Eric Baumgartner, 39, was painting lines on a middle school’s practice soccer field Wednesday afternoon, hoping to wrap before the rain started.
Baumgartner didn’t finish in time. Dramatic video showed the moment a bolt of lightning struck him while on the field, WCBS reported.
Baumgartner’s co-workers called 911 to report what had happened.
Woodbridge police officer Robert “R.J.” McPartland, a certified emergency medical technician and former firefighter, was ending his shift at a nearby high school at the time of the strike and said he was able to respond quickly, as he was “trained to do,” Pressreported.
He said he raced into action upon finding Baumgartner unresponsive and with no pulse, according to news.
“We were able to see some burn marks appeared on his hands, so that was how we were able to determine what happened, and we knew we needed to start compressions to get his heart started again,” McPartland was quoted as saying. “We were trying to talk to him the whole time. Once we were in the ambulance and he did get a pulse back, he did slowly begin to regain consciousness.”
Baumgartner, a US Coast Guard veteran and dad to two young sons, was taken to a hospital.
He was listed in good condition on Friday, a spokesperson with Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health told in an email.
“R.J. McPartland saved Eric Baumgartner’s life,” Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said. “He’s very lucky that everybody was where they should have been when they should have been.”
A Woodbridge Police Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.
What’s happening in China and what does it mean for the rest of the world?Sign Me Up
Though the risk of getting hit by lightning is low, an average of 28 people die each year from being struck, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A typical flash of lightning contains about 300 million volts and 30,000 amps, according to the National Weather Service.