Tributes have poured in for a heroic beachgoer who was fatally struck by lightning while warning children to flee an approaching storm.
Patrick Dispoto, 59, was leaving a New Jersey beach on Sunday with his girlfriend when tragedy unfolded, after returning to the beach when he realized lifeguards had left for the day.
“He said, ‘I’ll be right back,'” Dispoto’s girlfriend, Ruth Fussell, told News12 New Jersey.
When the 59-year-old man did not return, he was found lying lifeless on the beach surrounded by witnesses who saw him struck by lightning.
Patrick Dispoto, 59, was tragically killed Sunday when he was struck by lightning on a New Jersey beach while trying to help children escape a storm.
Dispoto’s girlfriend Ruth Fussell (pictured together) said she returned to the beach and found him lifeless on the beach, before doctors declared him dead at hospital.
Fussell spoke through tears as he recalled Patrick’s final moments and said he even tried to convince him not to return to help others left behind on New Jersey’s Seaside Park beach.
“I told him, ‘You don’t have to go back,'” he recalled.
“He says, ‘I’m going to warn these kids because the sky is going to open.’ I’m just going to warn these kids, one minute.” I said no.”
After making sure she was safe inside her car, Ruth said Patrick returned to the beach to help children and families clear before the storm hit.
But she said she called him three times with no response and waited about 15 minutes, before running to the beach to find Patrick on the ground with the children nowhere in sight.
Ruth began performing desperate CPR attempts on other witnesses, however Patrick was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
“The doctor said that 45 minutes after the brain was deprived of oxygen, it had to be disconnected,” he said. “I said, ‘No, you can’t.'”
Fussell remembered her boyfriend as a generous and selfless man, and said his “last act of heroism was the ultimate.”
She paid tribute to her boyfriend as a selfless and generous man who often helped those in need.
“His last act of heroism was the ultimate, and that’s my Patrick Dispoto,” he said.
The father of two’s son, Cole Dispoto, told CBS New York that he was told his father died as a result of the lightning strike.
“As I understand it, a lightning bolt struck not far away and probably hit the sand, and sand conducts electricity very well,” he said.
“(The electricity) happened and his body was the first thing that hit.”
“My father was someone who always put others before himself,” his daughter added.
According to News12, the Seaside Park beach tragedy comes as three lightning warning systems have been installed.
Dispoto’s two children paid tribute to their heroic father, as his daughter said her ‘father was someone who always put others before himself’
The Seaside Park beach tragedy comes as three lightning warning systems are being installed to warn beachgoers of approaching thunderstorms.
Dispoto’s death on Seaside Park beach comes three years after the death of 19-year-old lifeguard Keith Pinto, who was struck by lightning while trying to help others off the beach.
The systems, approved in April, will cover the mile-and-a-half-long shoreline of the beach and send an alert to beachgoers to clear the area if lightning approaches.
Dispoto’s death on Seaside Park beach comes three years after the death of 19-year-old lifeguard Keith Pinto.
Pinto was struck by lightning while trying to help other people off the beach, where four other people were also injured during an impact.
The 19-year-old now has a stretch of beach named in his honour.