A Georgia Southern player was taken to East Georgia Regional Medical Center after lightning struck a tree at the school's practice field.
The team had moved practice up an hour to avoid the incoming weather, but practice was stopped when there was lightning in the area. The team then moved into the pavilion at the practice facility, and head coach Jeff Monken told the Savannah Morning News that the player who was taken to the hospital was near the edge of the structure when the lightning struck the tree.
Monken didn't identify the player, who later returned to practice once it had resumed indoors, though he didn't participate. Trees line the perimeter of Georgia Southern's practice facilities, and as evidenced by this picture here, it's been a very rainy late summer. (The school does not have an indoor football practice facility)
“I’ve never been close to a bomb going off, but I have to think (the lightning strike) was close to that,” Monken told the paper. “It was scary, for sure.”
Thankfully the player wasn't seriously hurt. While the odds of being struck by lightning are in the hundreds of thousands, being perilously close to a lightning strike is a sobering reminder of how dangerous thunderstorms can be. You can bet that the team will likely retreat indoors the next time a storm rolls in.