Jogger's Death From Bolt Has Irony -- Redmond Woman Always `Respected' Lightning

BELLEVUE - Arlene Popovich knew enough to treat lightning with respect.

Just two years ago, she and her friends abandoned their climb of Mount Rainier only 300 feet from the top after they could hear the thunder and see the lightning approaching.

"You could feel the electricity in the air," recalled her boyfriend, Bill Campbell. "So we scampered down."

On Monday, in a setting that seemed far safer, the 31-year-old Popovich was unable to get out of the way. While in the middle of her routine three-mile jog through Marymoor Park in Redmond, she was fatally struck by lightning. She died yesterday morning at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue. Hospital officials held a news conference a few hours after her death.

In fact, they said, lightning fatalities are more common than most people think. About 100 people are killed each year nationwide after being struck by lightning, said Dr. James McHugh, who treated Popovich. He noted that most U.S. deaths from lightning occur in the East and South, particularly Florida.

Several of Popovich's friends also were on hand yesterday, including Campbell and Popovich's roommate, Susan Traff, to share memories and photos. Most of the pictures were of Popovich, a world traveler and sports enthusiast, in embraces with her friends while snow skiing, mountain climbing and waterskiing.

Campbell and Traff said they knew something was wrong Monday night when Popovich failed to show up at her Redmond condo for dinner. They first called some friends, then the police and then the hospital.

"I think we got nervous at 8 p.m.," said Traff. "It was dark and her car, keys and purse were there."

In fact, one of the problems for emergency personnel was that Popovich did not have any identification with her. Friends identified her for hospital officials by the tattoo of an "R" on her left ankle. Her nickname was "R," short for Arlene, her friends explained.

Dr. David Roselle, who treated Popovich at the scene, said he was optimistic at first about her chances of survival because of her age and health. Popovich's clothes and her hair had been singed; her running shoes, ripped and scarred, lay several feet from her body. She had burns on the outside of her body.

It took 40 minutes to get her heart beating again, Roselle said. She never regained consciousness and was put on full life support until she died at 9:35 a.m. yesterday from internal injuries.

Nobody knows whether Popovich was actually running at the time she was hit.

"It's hard to say how she was struck," Roselle said. "But she was probably struck directly."

Her friends sat quietly together during the news conference, letting Stacy Bean speak for them. Bean graduated with Popovich from Seattle's Blanchet High School in 1980, and the two had spent 14 months together traveling around the world in the late '80s.

"We're going to have a talk about the melodramatic way she left when I see her again," Bean said. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lightning safety tips

-- Avoid contact with metal objects and remove any exposed metal on your body.

-- Seek a dry area and low ground.

-- Make as small a target as possible, but don't lie or sit. Squat on rubber boot heels, or kneel with your toes touching the ground, in a head-down position. Don't huddle in a group.

-- Don't become the highest conductor in the area. Do not seek shelter under a solitary tree.