Victim, Previously Hit, Figured Odds Were in His Favor

Matthew Edward Nordbrock had been struck by lightning once before. And as he sprinted for shelter from a gathering storm at the top of Mt. Whitney, he told his roommate and hiking companion, James Swift, that he wouldn’t be jolted again.

Yet inside a stone cabin near the Eastern Sierra summit, it was the bespectacled Nordbrock--among more than a dozen huddled hikers--who was fatally injured by the lightning bolt that struck shortly after 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

“Jim (Swift) said the floor crackled and people felt their legs get numb,” said Nordbrock’s mother, Evelyn, a tax preparer in Tucson.

“Then everybody jumped up and were screaming, and they realized that Matt and another person were knocked down. The other person was revived right away, and they did CPR on Matt for four hours,” she said Sunday.

Her son’s metal-framed glasses were blamed for contributing to his death.

“The doctor told us they thought the lightning probably had the worst effect on Matt because he was wearing metal-rimmed glasses,” she said.

Metal-rimmed glasses were a factor in the earlier lightning strike, too, his mother recalled.

More than a decade ago, he and his younger brother and two other boys were in a rowboat on a lake in Arizona’s White Mountains when lightning struck during a sudden storm. “Matt was temporarily stunned,” his mother said, “but one of the other boys was pretty badly hurt. . . . That boy was wearing metal-rimmed glasses, too.”

Relatives and friends alike mourned the death of Nordbrock.

A senior credit analyst who had just won a promotion at the Earle M. Jorgensen Co. in Lynwood, Nordbrock was remembered as a powerful athlete, a health enthusiast and a gregarious man who attracted friends like a magnet.

“I’m bummed out,” said a shaken Joseph Cotti, 22, another roommate who would have been on the fateful trip if he hadn’t had to work Saturday. “This kind of thing is something you can’t really plan for. They were just a bunch of guys who went up there to have a good time and enjoy the wilderness.”

Cotti’s girlfriend, Alice Brancali, 22, her blue eyes brimming with tears, added: “We keep hoping it’s a nightmare and we’re going to wake up and Matt will be OK.”

Cotti said he was drawn into the University of Arizona graduate’s orbit by a newspaper ad for a room to rent two years ago. They, in turn, hooked up with Swift, another University of Arizona alumnus. In short order, their circles of friends converged. Besides sharing fishing trips, cycling excursions and other athletic activities, on Sundays they often attended church together and followed up with a barbecue.

The roommates were big fans of country-pop artist Jimmy Buffett, and friends from all over converged in Orange County for the singer’s show last month.

Cotti said he last saw Nordbrock and the 24-year-old Swift as they piled into a Honda Accord hatchback Friday evening with buddies Kent Kroener and Steven Hellman, both engineers living in Huntington Beach and experienced hikers.

“They were fighting over who got what seat,” Cotti recalled.

Armed with Jimmy Buffett tapes, the foursome headed for the High Sierra about 7 p.m. According to Swift, who telephoned Cotti early Sunday morning with the news of Nordbrock’s death, the group broke camp at about 10 or 11 a.m. Saturday and headed for the 14,494-foot peak.

It was nearly 5:30 p.m., Swift told Cotti and Evelyn Nordbrock, when they reached the top and the storm blew in. Kroener and Hellman, both 23, went to find shelter.

“They were at the very top (of Mt. Whitney), and they felt quivers or burning from the rocks near them, and Matt said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get out of here,’ ” Evelyn Nordbrock said Swift told her.

Apparently confident that the odds were in his favor, Nordbrock reportedly told Swift, “I’ve been hit by lightning before, so I won’t get struck.”

The pair then ran downhill and were waved into the stone cabin by Kroener and Hellman.

Swift, who was released from the hospital with first- and second-degree burns, was driving to Huntington Beach with Kroener and Hellman late Sunday and could not be reached for comment.

Nordbrock is survived by his parents, Evelyn and Neil, brothers Mark, 28, and Daniel, 22, and by a half sister, Kim Beller, 34, of Greenwood, Neb.

Evelyn Nordbrock said she and her husband were trying, through the American Consulate in Madrid, to get word of the tragedy to their eldest son, a law student who is spending the summer in Spain.

The funeral will be held in Tucson, but arrangements had not been set late Sunday.

Meanwhile, in Huntington Beach, tearful acquaintances sorted through mementos of their lost friend and made plans to fly to Tucson.

“Matt’s gone, but there are all these people who care about him. He was just very, very loved by everybody,” Brancali said.