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A New Jersey woman is speaking out after her boyfriend was killed by lightning while trying to warn children at the beach of an approaching thunderstorm.

Patrick Dispoto, 59, and his girlfriend, Ruth Fussell, were leaving the beach at Seaside Park on Sunday when Dispoto went back to warn a group of kids in the water about the dangers of an impending lightning storm. It would be the last time Fussell would see him alive.

"He said, 'I'll be right back.' And I said, 'You have no business going back.' He says, 'I'm just going to warn these kids because the sky is gonna open. I'm just going to warn these kids. One minute.' And I said, 'No,'" Fussell said.

But apparently, Dispoto, in his heart, simply could not rest thinking about the kids he saw on the beach not leaving fast enough to beat the threat of the storm. After making sure Fussell was safe in his truck, he went back to warn them.

Fussell waited 15 minutes for Dispoto to return.

"I called him three times, and he didn't respond," she said.

Worried, Fussell went back to find her boyfriend face down in the sand with a stranger standing over him.

"He was saying, 'Help, help, 911.' I administered mouth-to-mouth, and then, the guy's wife was doing chest compressions," Fussell said.

First responders arrived and took Dispoto to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"The doctor said, '45 minutes after a brain has no oxygen, you have to unplug it.' And I said, 'No, no, you can't help?'" Fussell said.

Police have confirmed that Dispoto was killed by a lightning strike.

Fussell says Dispoto never passed up an opportunity to make someone's life easier, and that's what she wants everyone to know in the wake of his death.

"So, his last act of heroism was his ultimate. That's my Patrick Dispoto," she said.

In April, Seaside Park approved $50,000 to buy three lightning warning systems to cover its mile-and-a-half-long beach to warn of lightning danger long before the threat reaches the shoreline.

A few Jersey Shore beaches already have such warning systems. One sits atop the lifeguard station at Berkeley Township Beach where 19-year-old lifeguard Keith Pinto died in 2021. He was struck by lightning as he was trying to get visitors off the beach.