Family members are mourning a South Jersey man who was killed by a lightning strike on Wednesday night time.
Robert Montgomery, 61, was on the Black Knight Bowbenders Archery Vary in Jackson, New Jersey, when the lightning strike hit him and 13 others on July 17 simply after 7 p.m.
Montgomery was a resident of Cinnaminson. He was a beloved father, grandfather and brother.
His sister mentioned that he died whereas doing one thing that he liked.
“He was funny and a good guy and always focused on trying to do the right thing,” his sister, Beth Bass, mentioned.
Beth remembers her older brother Robert as a helper with a persona that took up the room. He all the time regarded for a joke.
Whereas rising up in Burlington County, Beth mentioned that he fell in love with the game of archery at a younger age and shared footage of him from competitions courting again to the Nineteen Seventies.
As an grownup, Robert grew to become a member of the archery vary in Jackson.
It was there the place he was working as an teacher educating younger cub scouts in regards to the sport when issues took a tragic flip,.
“We heard thunder in the distance, lightning struck a tree. Had no time to react heard a bunch of people hit the ground,” Tom Coopey, who was there, mentioned.
Robert died from his accidents.
“It’s devastating. It’s confusing. We are in a state of shock. It’s hard to see how things are going to look going forward, but it’s like a big hole,” Beth mentioned.
USA Archery launched a press release saying that they’re heartbroken to study of Robert’s passing.
The group held a second of silence earlier than a contest on Thursday morning.
Robert’s dying marks the second lightning fatality in New Jersey this month.
The incident comes simply over every week after a 28-year-old man was struck by lightning whereas {golfing} in Hardyston, in North Jersey. That sufferer died days later.
Together with Wednesday’s incident, there have been 12 confirmed deaths from lightning strikes in the US to this point in 2025.
