A man and a five-year-old boy are in critical condition after being struck by lightning in Northern Ireland, as severe storms across the UK caused flash floods in some areas.
A seven-year-old girl was also seriously injured during the incident at Lisburn in County Antrim on Tuesday. It is understood the man was collecting his children from Killowen primary school.
The 37-year-old man was receiving treatment at Lagan Valley hospital and was expected to be transferred to an intensive care unit. Witnesses said he was on his mobile phone at the time of the strike.
The two children were taken by ambulance to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast for treatment to burns.
It is understood the family had been making their way towards their jeep when the lightning struck. School staff gave emergency medical assistance, with the vice principal using a defibrillator on the critically ill father.
Elsewhere in the UK, flash flooding prompted hundreds of calls to emergency services. A spokesman for the Environment Agency told the Press Association that 35mm of rain had been logged in an hour in south London.
London Fire Brigade said it had received more than 100 flood-related calls, and had attended incidents thought to have been caused by lightning, including trees, hoardings and telegraph poles being set alight.
In south London, firefighters rescued a motorist after flash floods submerged three cars in two metres of water under a railway bridge in Manor Road in Wallington town centre. The two other drivers managed to escape before the fire service arrived. Police advised drivers to avoid the area and to expect significant delays.
In Scotland, a house was struck by lightning and several others flooded after heavy rain. Firefighters were called to a property in Mayfield, Midlothian, after it was hit by lightning. No one was injured but the Scottish fire and rescue service said teams were sent to the scene to deal with roof damage.
In Penicuik, flash flooding led to firefighters being called to homes to pump water out. Schools and a leisure centre were also affected.
— London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) June 7, 2016
We're attending a number of flash flooding & lightning strike calls in #Wallington, #Mitcham & #Croydon ©PaulJolly pic.twitter.com/GPZmrEABsc
A spokesman for the London ambulance service said: “We were called at 2.42pm to reports of a person in distress due to a flash flood incident on Manor Road, Wallington. We sent an ambulance crew and a single responder by car to the scene, arriving in three minutes. We checked over a man at the scene but he was not taken to hospital.”
Massimo Monaco, 21, who works at The Cutting Point Barbers on Manor Road, told Press Association that passers-by tried to save one of the drivers by smashing his car window with bricks. He said: “The first car got stuck and the driver got out and started trying to push it, then the Mercedes driver just came and stopped behind him.
“The first guy ran off and the Mercedes was overflowing - the water was near the top of the car. People were throwing bricks to try and smash the windows. Either the window broke or he managed to open it then he got out.
“Somehow he managed to get out and a woman was holding down an umbrella, he then got back in the car, got half-way in, got something out. We thought it was a kid but it was either an iPad or a laptop.
“It must be important to get one of them when you’re on the edge of, like, nearly drowning.”
The Met Office said heavy and thundery showers would continue into Tuesday evening, becoming confined to south-eastern and central England overnight, with isolated showers across parts of Scotland.
More showers were forecast across south-eastern England on Wednesday, with heavy and thundery showers developing during the day, mainly across western parts before spreading to the south-east.
Grahame Madge, forecaster for the Met Office, said the downpours could continue to cause localised flooding, surface water flooding and travel disruption.
He added: “What we have is a situation where we have warm, very moist air coming in from the continent and the heat added to the warm air causes it to rise and sees the development of these showers.
“The intensity of those can be very severe in localised areas - as we have seen in some places like London and Brighton there has been very heavy rainfall. And that has led to flooding in some areas.”
