Eight teenage boys injured after lightning strikes during soccer practice on Lidingö, Sweden

On Thursday evening, eight teenage boys were injured, two of whom are still being treated for severe injuries, after being struck by lightning on Lidingö, Sweden. The young athletes were practicing soccer when a sudden downpour occurred, prompting them to seek shelter under nearby trees.

One of the boys, 13-year-old Léon, was on the same field that evening. He described the initial weather as light rain and distant thunder, but as the storm intensified, he began to feel frightened. “I started to panic when I heard that the boys under the tree had been struck,” Léon recounted. “It was the scariest moment of my life.”

Following the strike, Léon and the other players crowded into their coach’s car for protection, watching helplessly as the incident unfolded nearby. He estimated the lightning hit only about 50 meters away. “When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t as scared, but I feel very sorry for those who are in the hospital,” he added.

During the severe weather, Léon’s mother, Charlotte, experienced sheer panic as she could not reach her son. “It felt like I was in a war zone; the weather turned so quickly,” she said, recounting how the windows rattled from the force of the lightning strike.

According to meteorologists, at least 100 lightning strikes were recorded on Lidingö within an hour, contributing to roughly 900 strikes across the Stockholm area. However, the storm had not been predicted, as weather models often struggle to detect such phenomena. Warnings had been issued farther west, but none were in place for the Stockholm area where the lightning hit.