A 30-year-old coach died this Thursday and several men had to be hospitalized, one of them between life and death, due to a lightning strike on a football field in Courrières, northern France, which was occupied by a amateur team.
The Prefecture (Government delegation) explained that the deceased did not survive the impact of the lightning, which fell around 8:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT) at the Gabriel Péri stadium, despite the intervention of emergency services to revive him. The victim’s name was Jordan and his brothers, Luka and Théo, questioned by the RTL radio station, highlighted that everything happened very quickly.
In its statement, the Prefecture stated that there were 29 people on the soccer field when the event occurred, which triggered the arrival of fire teams and health personnel. The department of Pas de Calais in which Courrières is located was under a yellow weather alert for storms, like three quarters of France.