A fishing trip on the Delaware River turned deadly when a thunderstorm swept over three men laying nets off the New Jersey shore.
A bolt of lightning struck their launch, killing 40-year-old Leverman Hickman and knocking the others unconscious. For a time, the boat ran wild through the storm with no one at the helm.
When Norman Dolbow regained consciousness, he found himself aboard a drifting boat in blinding weather, with one companion dead and another still stunned.
He managed to take control of the launch and steer it back toward shore, bringing the battered fishing party out of the storm.
Fishing Boat Struck
PENNSVILLE, New Jersey. — With one man lying dead across the bottom of a fishing launch and another unconscious after lightning struck the boat, the third member of the party piloted the craft through the blinding thunderstorm last night to the Delaware River shore near Riverview Beach.
The dead man was Leverman Hickman, 40, Pennsville, N.J. He, Norman Dolbow, and Usa McPherson were laying nets when suddenly caught in the storm a quarter mile off shore. The lightning bolt which killed him, stunned Dolbow and the two others.
The launch ran wild until Dolbow regained consciousness and took the helm.
Source: New Britain Herald. New Britain, Conn. April 22, 1927.
