Sought Refuge Under Tree : 8 Girls and Coach Injured in Tustin Lightning Strike

Lightning injured eight members of a girls’ softball team and their coach after they sought refuge from a driving rain under a tree at a Tustin elementary school.

The bolt hit shortly before noon Saturday as the players’ horrified parents watched from nearby.

The girls, who ranged in age from 8 to 10, and the coach were taken to four Orange County hospitals. Seven of the girls were hospitalized for burns and shock, with two reported in serious condition and five in stable condition. The eighth girl and assistant coach Steve Nicolai were treated for minor injuries and released.

Fast-Moving Storm

The lightning was triggered by a fast-moving storm that raked the Southland on Saturday, flooding streets and highways. The thunderstorms forced an early end to the 38th annual Navy Relief Air Show at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station near Irvine, but the two-day event is scheduled to resume today at 9 a.m.

The injuries prompted several parents to criticize the team’s head coach for ordering the youngsters under the tree when thunderclouds could be seen gathering nearby and lightning strikes occurred. But league officials defended the coach.

The incident happened at 11:30 a.m. on a baseball field on the grounds of Edgewood School, a private school in the 1800 block of Lassen Drive in Tustin, Orange County Fire Department officials said.

The injured girls were members of the Waves, one of 31 girls’ softball teams in the Tustin Bobby Sox League.

According to accounts from fire officials and parents who witnessed the accident, the Waves were warming up to start a game with the Candy Canes, who were not on the field, when a light drizzle began.

The players were instructed by head coach John Bates of Cowan Heights to stand under a 50-foot oak tree, witnesses said.

Two team members, Julie Nicolai and Stephanie Brewer, along with the few spectators present, sought shelter from the rain by running under other nearby trees or by raising umbrellas.

The remaining eight Waves players, assistant coach Steve Nicolai and Carrie Maggard Leach, a mother of one of the girls, were standing beneath the oak when a lightning bolt hit the treetop and traveled down its trunk to the ground. The force of the bolt threw all eight girls to the ground. Nicolai and Leach weren’t knocked down, but Leach said her hair was singed, although she was otherwise unhurt.

Immediately after the lightning strike, witnesses said, all the girls appeared lifeless and many of them had begun to turn blue, apparently because they were unable to breathe.

The girls “were lying all over the place. . . . They all looked like they were dead,” Leach said Saturday while waiting outside a hospital emergency room for her 8-year-old daughter, Katie Maggard, in Orange. “I had never seen anything like it.”

Parents and bystanders, including coach Bates, administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation to some of the children, said Bart Beckman, the league president, who was at the game.

By the time paramedics arrived about five minutes later, most of the injured had been revived, county fire officials said.

Paramedic Capt. Jack Wallace of the Orange County Fire Department criticized Bates’ decision to send the team under a tree, saying that no such order should have been given when there was thunder and lightning in the sky. An umbrella carried by one of the girls, Wallace added, could have acted as a conductor for the lightning.

However, Bates, whose daughter was among those felled by the electrical bolt, defended his action and said he saw no lightning and heard no thunder. But other witnesses said they did.

Beckman said a flash of lightning was seen “way off” in the distance about 10 minutes before the rain started. But he also rejected criticism of Bates, saying the coach had saved the lives of some of the victims by giving them cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The injured girls were identified as:

Beth Carillo, who was listed in serious condition with burns and shock at Chapman General Hospital in Orange; Katie Maggard, in serious condition at Chapman, and Kaylee Whitfield, in stable condition at Chapman; Julie Throckmorton, Theresa Farnum and Wendy Meyers, all in stable condition at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, and Tiffany Thompson, in good condition at Childrens Hospital of Orange County in Orange.

The head coach’s daughter, Carrie Bates, was treated for minor burns at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and later released.

Assistant coach Nicolai, who underwent heart surgery earlier this year, was treated for chest pains at St. Joseph and later released.

Elsewhere in the Southland on Saturday, the latest storm triggered a rash of minor auto accidents, scattered power outages and minor flooding. It struck after a day of sunshine had eased a week of rainy days.

By midday, heavy rain was falling in some mountains areas. Mt. Wilson received 2 inches of snow in six hours, while Interstate 5 received a dusting of snow between Newhall and Gorman. Part of the Angeles Crest Highway was closed to all vehicles without chains.

Hail the size of marbles pelted Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks and Malibu, while sleet made some streets in the Antelope Valley slippery. Heavy rain in the San Bernardino National Forest caused minor flooding in some streams.

Despite the intermittently heavy downpours scattered throughout Orange County, only a third of an inch of rain had fallen in Santa Ana by 5 p.m. Saturday, with Newport Beach reporting 0.13 of an inch. High temperatures Saturday ranged from 58 degrees in El Toro to 64 degrees in Santa Ana.

The Southland is expected to get a reprieve today as the rain moves on to Arizona and New Mexico. Today should be mostly sunny and warmer, with temperatures reaching the upper 60s or low 70s.

The dreary weather should stay away until late this week, when clouds return Thursday, said Dan Bowman, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. Rain is possible Friday if storm systems that are expected to sweep across Northern California this week head south.

Despite the Southland’s recent wet weather, the amount of rain so far this year is still below normal. From July, 1987, to early Saturday, Los Angeles had received 11.50 inches contrasted with the average of 14.42 inches. Last year, an unusually dry one, Los Angeles had only received 7.61 inches by this time.

Times staff writers Andrea Ford in Orange County and Lynn O’Shaughnessy in Los Angeles contributed to this article.