Five persons were killed and eight were seriously injured by lightning at the Parkway Baths, between Coney Island and Brighton Beach at 4:35 o'clock yesterday afternoon. At the same time one person was killed and three were badly burned by a lightning stroke at Ulmer Park. Two women were thrown from a trolley car as the result of the shock from a lightning flash on Gravesend Avenue.

The accidents occurred simultaneously and at the corners of an equilateral triangle, each side of which is a mile long. Scores were injured in a lesser degree, and were able to go to their homes.

The Dead: At The Parkway Baths

DEMMERLEE, Charles R., twenty years old, 372 East Sixteenth Street, Flatbush.

DEMMERLEE, Frank, twenty-three years old, brother of Charles R. and of the same address.

DUNWOODIE, George, a member of the Acorn Athletic Club at 332 Ninth Street, Brooklyn.

FRANKLIN, Jacob, of 228 East Seventy-first Street, Manhattan.

WASCH, Robert, sixteen years old, of Prospect and Tremont Avenues, the Bronx, a cousin of the Dammerlee brothers.

At Ulmer Park

RALZAILDER, Henry, forty-five years old, of 197 Bush street, Brooklyn.

The Injured: At the Parkway Baths

CHRISTIANSEN, Tina, of 455 Pacific Street, Brooklyn; shock, loss of memory, and burned about the breast; taken to the Emergency Hospital at Coney island.

CURLEY, Mary L., twenty years old, of 580A Gates Avenue, Brooklyn; burned about the head and feet; taken to the Emergency Hospital.

DUNNE, James J., twenty-four years old, of 269 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn; severely burned; taken to the Emergency Hospital.

KROHN, Carrie, nineteen years old, telephone operator at 397 South Fifth Street, Williamsburg; badly burned, taken to the Emergency Hospital.

MILL, David, twenty one years old of 19 Fillmore Place, Brooklyn; burns on feet; taken to the Emergency hospital.

REES, Isaac, thirty-four years old, lives in Dean Street, Brooklyn; burns at base of skull, down-back and both legs; taken away by friends; wife seeking him.

SHEEHAN, Amelia, fifty years old, of 808 East One Hundred and Forty-second Street, the Bronx; badly burned: taken to the Emergency Hospital.

THIEL, Clara, nineteen years old, of Twelfth Street and Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn; severely burned; taken to the Emergency Hospital.

At Ulmer Park

APPLE, John, fifty-two years old, of 188 Tenth Street, Brooklyn; badly burned; taken to the Norwegian Hospital.

MCCAULEY, Daniel, thirty-one years old, of 306 Twelfth Street, Brooklyn; burned about the body; taken to the Norwegian Hospital.

RALZAILDER, William, thirteen years old, of Bush Street, Brooklyn; severely burned: 197 Bush Street, Brooklyn; severely burned;

Those killed and injured at the Parkway Baths were near the foot of a flagpole which was shattered by the bolt of lightning. At Ulmer Park the fatality and injuries occurred beneath a tree.

It started to rain shortly after 4 o'clock at Coney island and Brighton Beach. Clouds had been rolling up from the south and east for an hour, and the distant rumbling of thunder had been heard. It had not been loud enough, however, to attract much attention. Even when the heavy banks of clouds had merged in a seemingly impenetrable wall and the rain began the downpour was not pronounced enough to drive bathers long the beach to shelter. Hundreds who weren't bathing stayed out too.

An ominous clap of thunder broke the comparative quiet at 4:30 o'clock and hundreds sought shelter in the spacious bathing pavilion and adjacent hotels in dread of a drenching. Torrent Made It Dark

A minute later the rain fell in real earnest, a slanting, driving torrent, while at the same instant the heavens were obscured as if it were twilight. The crowds huddled together or broke to the nearest remaining shelter as their instincts prompted.

Among those who joined in the flight were perhaps 200 bathers, who ran laughing across the narrow stretch of sand that separated them from the steps leading to the bathing pavilion and the boardwalk.

The boardwalk is raised above the beach, and this furnished a partial shelter for scores. A flagpole rears its ninety feet at this point. A hundred persons were either standing under the edge of the walk near the pole or had nearly reached it when a flash of flame struck the pole, ran down its length, and hurled all those near it to the ground. They fell outward on either side as though cast down by a giant's strength.

Flag Sent to Half-Mast

The flash was accompanied by a deafening, splintering crash. The flagpole was shattered, the big flag was torn to ribbons and dropped to half-mast, where it hung for an hour and a half.

Some thirty persons fell on the sand at the flash, and half of them regained their feet in a few minutes. Some stirred feebly, but five, all young men, lay motionless in their bathing suits. They were all dead, and their bodies had been blackened by the flame. None of them was closer than five feet to the flagpole, yet one man whop had stood with his back against it regained his feet and groped his way across the sands until friends who recognized him took him away to some hospital, the location of which his wife had not learned late last night. This was Isaac Rees.

After the stroke there was a rush to the flagpole. Fully 2,000 persons crowded about to see if any of their friends were among the killed or injured. Women screamed, and some of them fainted, and there was so much confusion that it was some time before the dead were picked out from those who were only stunned or burned.

John Manzer, a young man employed by the Boer War show, was standing on the boardwalk with his megaphone announcing the features of the spectacle, when the lightning struck the pole. He looked over the rail and upon seeing the prostrate forms on the sand rushed into the bathing pavilion and notified Manager Philip Brasher, a Princeton senior, one of the many college students employed there, that several persons had been killed.

Princeton Men to the Rescue

Brasher blew his whistle three times, and in response to each call four employees joined them. They ran down to the foot of the flagpole and began to carry the injured into the pavilion, where a sort of hospital ward is maintained under the direction of Dr. Reimund.

Brasher next called up Police Headquarters in Brooklyn and told the Sergeant on duty that five persons were dead from a lightning stroke on the beach, and that dozens were lying about helpless on the sand. Headquarters notified the Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay Police Stations, and Sergts. McGowan and Strachan sent out the reserves with the patrol wagons. Capt. Dooley himself was in charge of the Coney island reserves. The Emergency Hospital was notified and the ambulance belonging to it started for the scene of the accident with Drs. Clay and Morrison.

All this time the rain was falling in torrents, and the overcast heavens were almost continuously ablaze from north to south. The news of the accident had spread from Coney island to Manhattan Beach, and additional thousands crowded the trolley cars or struggled through the muddy streets to reach the Parkway Baths. Fears were expressed audibly enough on every side at each fresh flash and thunder clap, but this did not deter the curious from seeking the details of the disaster.

Crowds Hinder Rescue Work

When the physicians and police reached the pavilion they found it overrun with persons well-nigh frantic, searching for those from whom they had become separated during the storm. The student employees of the pavilion, nearly frantic also, were urging the crowds back, but with little success, and the police formed a cordon like the line formed at a big fire in the city, and the crowds were thrust back upon the boardwalk and down the inclined plane to the beach, where they were exposed to the full force of the heavy rain.

An examination of the dead soon showed to the police that they were all bathers. Some of the injured had also been in bathing, but curiously enough all the women and girls who were burned wore their ordinary dresses.

Considerable time elapsed before any of the dead were identified. At length two women pushed through the crowd, and, singling out Manager Brasher, the elder of the two said: "I'm looking for my boys. Are any of those injured badly hurt?"

"Madam, five are dead," replied Brasher. If your boys or any of your friends are missing, if you will kindly give me a description of them, I will see if any we have here answer the descriptions."

"I will go and look at the bodies," said the woman, who said she was Mrs. Amelia Demmerlee of 372 East Sixteenth Street, Flatbush.

Lost Two Sons and Nephew

Brasher led her into the little room where the five bodies were stretched out on the floor. The woman took one look at them, and fell forward, crying:

"Oh, my boys! The dear boys to whose future I had looked forward with so much pride!"

Her two sons lay there, and beside them was the body of her nephew, Robert Wasch, big, strong, athletic young men the three of them.

Mrs. Demmerlee said that she and her sister, together with the three young men, had driven to the beach in a double-seated carriage. "And oh," she added, "I warned them not to go into the water when the storm came up. I feared even then that some evil was about to befall."

Soon after Mrs. Demmerlee had identified the three bodies a group of young men made their way into the pavilion. They said that they were looking for George Dunwoodle of the Acorn Athletic Club, Brooklyn. His body was among the dead, and they identified it. Then a young man burst through the throng hastily putting on his coat. He said he was Joseph Franklin of 228 East Seventy-first street, Manhattan. He had gone in bathing, he said, with his brother Jacob, and he himself had kept the key of the bathhouse, so that Jacob had been obliged to take shelter somewhere else from the storm.

He found his brother among the dead and reproached himself for having the key, when his brother might have carried it and saved himself.

While arrangements were being made for the temporary disposal of the dead bodies and the removal of the injured to the Emergency Hospital, another call came for an ambulance, and the news was that lightning had struck a tree at Harway Avenue and Bay Forty-ninth Street, Ulmer Park, and that one person standing beneath it had been killed, three others injured, and a dozen more thrown to the ground.

Impressed a Show Ambulance

Dr. Morrison immediately set off for Ulmer Park, while the Coney island Police Station patrol wagon and a supply wagon from the Boer War show were impressed as temporary ambulances.

The injured at Coney island, with the exception of Rees, who apparently more severely burned than any of the other injured, had gone no one knew where, were taken tot he Emergency Hospital. At the same time an undertaker's wagon arrived and the five bodies were put into it and taken to Howard Havron's Morgue in Eighth Street, Mrs. Demmerlee and her sister following behind in their carriage.

Thousands See Dead Carried Off

Thousands lined the streets in Coney Island, shrinking back to the walls of the buildings and underscant eaves and leaking awnings, to watch the little procession pass.

With the removal of the dead and injured from the Parkway Baths the interest of the thousands on the beach (all had come out of the water) centered on the splintered flagpole. This pole, which is a double pole, that is, jointed and with crosstrees at a height of thirty feet was painted white several days ago.

It was surmounted with a gilt ball. The ball was blackened by the lightning, which, according to young Manzer, descended in the shape of a great ball of fire. The pole itself for a distance of thirty feet from the top presented a curious spectacle. The lightning had blazed it black with a spiral seam, which gaped like a wide crack sometimes observed in wood that has warped.

Those familiar with the markings of tree trunks said that the lightning had followed the path of least resistance, that is, it had widened the spiral groove. Below the splintered part the flagpole was untouched. By some singular freak the lightning bolt unloosed, the halyards so that the instant the tragedy occurred the flag dropped to half mast, and its tattered shreds whipped about in the wind and rain.

Hundreds of the bathers, after viewing the shattered flagstaff returned to the water again and swam about until dark.

The bolt which caused a death at Ulmer Park struck a big cedar tree. A dozen persons or more were beneath it. Several of them had been tenting near the spot for several days, and the party to which the Ralzailders, father and son, belonged was returning from fishing. They had neglected to close the tent flap upon going away, and when, they returned they found everything in the tent water soaked. With Apple and McCauley they ran under the tree, hoping for better shelter. They had scarcely reached it when a blinding flash of lightning struck the tree, throwing every one under it to the ground. Henry Ralzailder was instantly killed. Besides the three seriously injured some ten or a dozen were severely shocked.

A lesser accident happened at Gravesend Avenue and Neck Road at exactly 4:35 o'clock. Car No. 820 of the Tompkins Avenue line was there when the flash came. It Struck the trolley wire, traveled to the pole, and down the pole into the car.

A terrific crash accompanied the flash and the concussion threw Mrs. and Miss Seder of 30 Tompkins Avenue into the ditch, which was filled with muddy water. Miss Spatz of 107 Hopkins Street was also shocked. All the other passengers escaped injury and all were able to proceed on their way in a few minutes. The car was not damaged.

Lightning Scares Patients
Bellevue Hospital Wires Struck Several Times Operator Stunned.

The storm caused great excitement in Bellevue Hospital, and at its height the hospital wires, both light and telephone, were struck several times, causing many lights to go out, and for a time crippling the telephone service through putting the switchboard out of commission.

The storm broke over the hospital at about 5:40 o'clock and by 6 was at its worst. The lightning soon struck several times in the vicinity of the hospital, causing excitement and consternation among patients, nurses, and physicians. One exceedingly heavy crash of thunder followed a flash of lightning which went, apparently, into the river directly in front of the hospital.

At 6:05 o'clock the wires were struck for the first time. Eugene Burns, the telephone operator, was at his post when there was a terrific roll of thunder and a blinding flash. The receiver of the telephone, which Burns held at his ear, was knocked from his hand, and Burns was for a time paralyzed. James Noonan, his assistant, ran to his aid, and assisted Burns to the receiving room of the hospital, where he was attended by Dr. Caldwell.

When he had recovered he and Noonan, followed by the doctors and help, a dozen in number, went to the telephone room to see what damage had been done.

The drops were all down on the board and many of the bells in the wards were ringing. While the men were crowded in the little room they were suddenly stampeded by another flash, which caused the wires to crackle. The drops again fell. With one accord all tried to leave the room, and their efforts were so strenuous that they carried the door with them. For some time after this the wires were out of order, and it was half an hour before they were working properly.

Half an hour after the first accident the lightning again hit the wires. This time it was a wire which supplied electric lights to Ward 23, the female medical ward, in the south wing of the building. There were but few lights on at the time, but these were extinguished.

The noise and extinguishing of the lights caused much excitement in the ward. The nurses, however, went among the sixteen patients and assured them that there was no danger. Men were put to work, and at 7 o'clock, when the lights were turned on throughout the hospital, all was normal.

During the storm the patients in the pavilions on the lawn were in terror. Their comparatively exposed situation frightened many, and it is said one man got from his bed and sinking to his knees, began praying for safety. Most of the patients in these outdoor pavilions are tuberculosis cases, and it was feared that the excitement might be harmful, but an examination by physicians showed that none had suffered materially.