Van Oort suffered from a brain hemorrhage resulting from the lightning strike that happened in 2006 while he was participating in a torch run for the Special Olympics.
Nine years after being struck by lightning, former Ohio University Police Officer Nathan Van Oort, 54, died Nov. 7.
Van Oort suffered from a brain hemorrhage resulting from the lightning strike that happened June 22, 2006 while he was participating in a torch run for the Special Olympics.
OUPD officer Tim Woodyard, who worked with Van Oort for six years, was with him when the lightning struck.
“Doctors told him he was going to die,” Woodyard said.
Woodyard added that Van Oort was a “family man” with a wife and four kids. They were strong throughout everything, he said.
Woodyard said his relationship with Van Oort went beyond working, pointing out they went to the same church off-duty.
“At the funeral they talked about his integrity and honesty,” Woodyard said. “Things that should describe a Christian.”
Woodyard added that Van Oort was a strong Christian, which the two talked about often while they worked alongside each other.
“We had fun doing cop stuff together, working midnights,” Woodyard said.
Before his time at OUPD, Van Oort was a paratrooper in the Army, according to his obituary from Leavitt Funeral Home’s website. It stated he also worked for the White House Communications Agency for U.S. President Bill Clinton. Van Oort was deployed for 13 months to Balad, Iraq, according to the obituary.
Van Oort was struck while participating with local law enforcement from across Ohio in the torch run as the group stopped in Logan in a picnic shelter having lunch, but they could hear some thunder off in the distance.
The lightening struck the shelter, went down into the cement pad and electrified the metal rebar inside the pad. Van Oort, who was standing on the pad, was wearing bike shoes with metal on the bottom of the soles, Woodyard said.
“He was standing on it so lightning came up through his shoe, up into his leg,” Woodyard said.
People at the picnic shelter performed CPR on Van Oort for 20 minutes, before paramedics got his heart beating again, Woodyard said.
Those who worked with Van Oort weren’t the only ones who saw the kind of person he was.
John Coen, fire chief of the Coolville Volunteer Fire Department, used to be a deputy for the Athens County Sheriff’s Office. He said he knew a lot of OUPD officers because of his position.
“It was a sad thing when it happened,” Coen said. “We were wondering how it could have happened.”
Coen added that when Van Oort was at the Muskingum Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation Home, church members would go visit with him once a month.
“He seemed like a really nice guy,” Coen said.
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