Lightning Bolt: Electrical Discharge

Food Festival Dept: WHITBY, Ont. - Hundreds of people at an Ontario food festival were crammed into a dining tent waiting out a sudden rainshower Sunday when a lightning bolt struck one of the structure's steel poles, triggering an electrical discharge that sent 17 people to hospital amid a buzz of concern, according to Winnipeg Free Press. "All of a sudden, like not even three seconds after that, you started hearing people screaming." A vendor packs up unsold ribs at the Ribfest food festival in Whitby, Ont., on Sunday, July 15, 2012. A lightning bolt that hit a tent at a food festival with hundreds of people inside sounded like a bomb going off when it struck, said one of the festival-goers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives "You see the flash and it sounded like a bomb went off exactly at the same time. It was so loud," said Steve Peddle, who was with his wife inside the main tent of the inaugural Whitby Ribfest when the lightning hit around 2 p.m. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.