Patrick Dispoto was killed by lightning at Seaside Park Beach while trying to warn children about thunderstorms and lightning on the Jersey Shore

SEASIDE PARK, NJ — A woman is speaking out about the tragic death of her boyfriend, who was struck by lightning on a New Jersey beach while trying to warn children on the beach about an approaching storm.

Patrick Dispoto, 59, and his girlfriend Ruth Fussell were leaving the beach at Seaside Park on the New Jersey coast when Dispoto suddenly decided to turn back to warn children in the water about the dangers of an impending storm. But it was to be the last time Fussell saw him alive.

“He said, ‘I’ll be right back.’ I said, ‘You have no business being here.’ And he said, ‘I’m just warning these kids, because the heavens are going to open. I’m just warning these kids — one minute.’ I said, ‘No,'” Fussell said.

Dispoto could not seem to rest in his heart the thought of the children he had seen on the beach because they had not left quickly enough to escape the danger of the storm.

First he made sure Fussell was safely in his car. Then he turned down J Street back toward the beach.

Fussell says she called him three times and he didn’t answer. She waited 15 minutes for Dispoto to return. Concerned, she went back and found him lying face down in the sand with a stranger standing over him.

“He was yelling, ‘Help, help, 911.’ I did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the man’s wife did CPR,” Fussell said.

Emergency services arrived and took Dispoto to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“The doctor said you have to disconnect the brain 45 minutes after oxygen is given. I said, ‘No, you can’t do that,'” Fussell said.

In April, Seaside Park approved a $50,000 investment in three lightning warning systems that will cover 1.5 miles of beach and warn of lightning strikes long before they reach the shore.

“You can set the radius you want to track it … five miles, 10 miles, 15 miles, and you can set the radius and the sirens will go off,” said Jim Rankin, lifeguard captain at Seaside Park.

Some beaches along the New Jersey coast already have warning systems in place. One of them is at the lifeguard station at Berkeley Township Beach, where in 2021, 19-year-old lifeguard Keith Pinto died when he was struck by lightning while trying to get visitors off the beach.

A section of the beach is now named after him.

Fussell says Dispoto never missed an opportunity to make someone’s life easier, and that’s what everyone should know.

“His last heroic act was his greatest, and that’s my Patrick Dispoto,” Fussell said.

Seaside Park police said Wednesday that Dispoto’s cause of death was confirmed to be an accident caused by a lightning strike.