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(Trends Wide) — A New Jersey police officer was hailed a hero after helping save the life of a father who was struck by lightning.
Woodbridge Township employee Eric Baumgartner, 39, was painting lines on a high school football practice field Wednesday afternoon, hoping to finish before the rain started, according to Woodbridge Township affiliate WCBS. Trends Wide.
However, Baumgartner did not finish on time. Dramatic video showed the moment lightning struck him while he was on the field, WCBS reported.
Baumgartner’s co-workers called 911 to report what happened, according to Trends Wide affiliate WPVI.
Woodbridge Police Officer Robert “RJ” McPartland, a certified EMT and former firefighter, was finishing his shift at a nearby high school at the time of the incident and said he was able to respond quickly as he was “trained to do so.” WCBS reported.
He said he was quick to act upon finding Baumgartner unconscious and without a pulse, according to WPVI.
“We could see some burn marks appearing on his hands, that’s how we were able to determine what happened, and we knew we needed to start compressions to get his heart working again,” McPartland was quoted as saying by WCBS. “We try to talk to him all the time. Once we were in the ambulance and he had his pulse back, he slowly began to regain consciousness.”
Baumgartner, a US Coast Guard veteran and father of two young children, was taken to a hospital.
He was in good condition on Friday, a spokesman for Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health told Trends Wide in an email.
“RJ McPartland saved the life of Eric Baumgartner,” Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said, according to WCBS. “He’s very lucky that everyone was there at the right time.”
A Woodbridge Police Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to Trends Wide.
Although the risk of being struck by lightning is low, an average of 28 people are killed each year by lightning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A typical lightning bolt contains about 300 million volts and 30,000 amps, according to the National Weather Service.
