BY FRANK ANTHONY CURRERI and MICHAEL VIGH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

A bolt of lightning struck and killed two Utah State Prison inmates —
members of the prison’s respected “Flame-N-Go’s” firefighting unit — as
they helped quash a wildfire Wednesday on Stansbury Mountain in Tooele
County.

In its 22 years of service, the Flame-N-Go’s program had never lost a
firefighter until Wednesday, said Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford.

Inmates Michael Bishop, 27, and Rodgie Braithwaite, 26, were scheduled
to be paroled within two years.

They and four other inmate firefighters were hit by the bolt at about
12:30 p.m., as they sought shelter from an intense flurry of lightning
strikes in the area, according to National Interagency Fire Center
officials.

Bishop and Braithwaite, who absorbed direct hits from the lightning, were taken by helicopter to the University of Utah’s Intermountain Burn and
Trauma Center in Salt Lake City and pronounced dead nearly an hour later,
officials said.

The other victims, also flown to the burn center, had nonlife-threatening injuries. They were accompanied to the hospital by their crew leader, Department of Natural Resources supervisor Jarin Flinders, who was uninjured.

Inmates Ernest Chacon, 31, Benjamin Taliulu, 23, and Anthony Duran, 25,
were treated and released. Inmate Michael Lindsay, 34, is expected to be
released from the hospital today.

Ford said the Flame-N-Go’s only accept the most well-behaved inmates.

“It means they had actually been model citizens, that they were trying
to turn their lives around,” he said. “We only take the best of the best.”

Bishop, who had been serving time for a 1993 murder, was scheduled for
parole in July 2002, according to prison records. Braithwaite, incarcerated
for automobile homicide, was scheduled for parole in October 2001. Both men were being held in the prison’s minimum-security section.

Therapists were at the prison Wednesday night to counsel inmates and staff, Ford said. The surviving members of Wednesday’s crew will be allowed to drop out of the Flame-N-Go’s program if they wish, he said.

The 19-member Flame-N-Go’s team had been flown to the top of Stansbury
Mountain on Wednesday, along with firefighters from the Army National Guard and an Idaho prison. The crews were helping to mop-up a nine-day, 250-acre fire that was 75 percent contained, officials said.

William Alder, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service, said
the storm moved slowly over the mountain, carried little rain and was
relatively mild. However, there were 40 reported lightning strikes in the
Stansbury area Wednesday afternoon.

“It appears the crew did follow all standard safety procedures,” said Jim Springer, a Utah spokesman for the Interagency Fire Center. “They had
been working high up on a ridge and moved down to lower ground. . . . They
moved to what they thought was a safe area, but unfortunately that was not
safe enough.”

When a single bolt of lightning strikes, “if the ground is wet and you’re all huddling together — you’ll all get hit,” said Larry Burch, also a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

Philip Bossart, emergency room director at University Hospital, said
lightning typically injures a victim’s brain and heart. In contrast to other
forms of electrocution, where skin burns are pronounced, injuries to most
lightning victims are internal.

Many lightning victims go into shock, feel hopelessly confused or
experience bouts of temporary paralysis, Bossart said. As many as 30 percent do not survive, he said. “Most people either die right away,” Bossart said, “or do really well.”

Death or injury from lightning is not uncommon in Utah. Since 1950,
there has been, on average, at least one fatality per year. This year alone,
three people have been killed and 14 injured statewide, making it the
deadliest year since 1963, Alder said.

Prior to Wednesday’s strike, there were 12 deaths nationwide related to
wildfires, including the five firefighters killed on the ground, said Howard
Parman, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

Since 1950, 51 people have been killed and 131 injured in Utah by lightning strikes, according to Alder. And since 1980, lightning has claimed 33 lives and injured 91 Utahns.

Last week, a 47-year-old British tourist survived, but was hospitalized
with burns and head injuries, after he was struck by lightning in Bryce
Canyon National Park.

In May, 11-year-old Rachel Green of Midvale was killed when she was struck by lighting while playing on her school playground at Midvalley Elementary School. Six other students were injured in the same strike. A 36-year-old man a few blocks away was hit during the same storm, but suffered only minor injuries.

In May 1999, one person was killed in Grand County and another died in
Emery County when they were struck. On the same day, three others were
injured when they were struck during the same storm.

In July 1998, a Draper construction worker was killed by lightning. A
month later, a 15-year-old boy was taking a walk near his grandparents’ home in Murray when he was struck by a lightning bolt. The boy survived.

Between 1940 and 1981, more than 7,700 people have been killed in the
United States by lightning strikes, according to the latest statistics compiled by the National Lightning Safety Institute.

A toaster, a feared source of household electrocution, typically contains 120 volts — enough to kill a human being. A bolt of lightning, by contrast, can contain 6 billion volts of nature’s lethal energy, Burch said.