A lightning bolt struck this oak tree and killed a 37-year-old woman and her horse who were nearby. Police say the woman was 10 feet away from the tree when she died
A lightning bolt struck this oak tree and killed a 37-year-old woman and her horse who were nearby. Police say the woman was 10 feet away from the tree when she died
A 15-year-old girl was left fighting for her life after a lightning bolt struck a tree near her and killed a woman she was with in Colorado.

The two were riding horses on an equestrian trail between the community of Sedalia, Colorado and the Roxborough State Park on Sunday afternoon.

After a lightning bolt struck an oak tree, the 37-year-old woman and her horse died.

The girl was 'conscious and breathing' when paramedics found the pair and the girl was taken to the hospital where she was treated for electrocution, according to Denver7.

The identities of the woman and the girl were not released by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, but the two riders were riding to meet the woman's mother, sheriff's Deputy Jason Blanchard told the Denver Post.

The teenage girl was a family friend of the woman who died.

Blanchard told the Denver Post that the riders were trying to stay ahead of the storm, but a lightning bolt hit the oak tree as they passed it on the trail, near West Rainbow Creek Road and Cherokee Drive in Sedalia.

'The strike was about 10 feet from where the woman and the horse went down,' Blanchard said.

Lightning kills an average of 49 people in the US every year, according to the National Weather Service. Hundreds more are severely injured.