CINCINNATI – Three women were jogging through Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery on Friday when a security guard—seeing a storm approaching—offered them a ride, a cemetery rep tells WLWT.
They declined the offer, and all three were hit by a lightning strike moments later as they sheltered under an oak tree. The strike killed Danielle Brosious, 27, who would have celebrated her first wedding anniversary in November. A second woman, Patty Herlinger, was rushed to the hospital but succumbed to her injuries Wednesday, WLWT reports. Brosious’ mother was not seriously injured.
“Spring Grove is deeply saddened by this tragic accident,” the cemetery’s president, Gary M. Freytag, tells the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“It’s just terrible timing of the whole thing. It’s just unfair,” a friend tells WCPO. She adds Brosious—a member of the Delta Gamma Sorority at Northern Kentucky University, from which she graduated in 2014 before earning a master’s degree in kinesiology at Eastern Illinois University—was “just too good.” She “took pride in being the best friend she could be and never fell short” and was “the glue that held a lot of us together,” according to her obituary.
Patty Herlinger worked for more than 30 years as a Cincinnati city employee and was remembered as a beloved friend and co-worker during a city council meeting Thursday, according to WLWT. Fellow employees held a moment of silence for Herlinger.
“Obviously a very sad day,” said Cincinnati City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld. “Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with Patty and all of her friends and family.”
(Seeking shelter under a tree isn’t ideal.)
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