At least 17 people have been taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries after lightning struck the main dinning tent at the Whitby Ribfest Sunday afternoon.

It happened at around 2:30 p.m. at Iroquois Park near Victoria and Gordon streets.

The injured have been taken to two area hospitals for treatment of electrical burns.

“I just felt an incredible pain go through my entire body, one unlike any I have ever felt in my life, and then within five to 10 seconds it was just gone,” Bill Sandiford, who was in the tent at the time, told CTV News. “I feel pretty fortunate. About five feet away from me there was a lady who was down and unconscious and my wife has burn marks in a couple different places on her body.”

Environment Canada had issued a severe thunderstorm watch covering much of the GTA at around 12:30 p.m., however Event Chair Colin O’Regan said the speed at which the storm rolled in still caught organizers by surprise.

“Many of the people were just sitting down in the tent to have their lunch and enjoy the music that was up on stage when it (the storm) rolled in,” O’Regan told CP24. “From what I understand a lightning rod on the tent itself was then struck by lightning and obviously there was a power surge down.”

In an interview with CP24 one of the vendors attending Ribfest described a chaotic scene.

“You could feel the tremble in the ground and within minutes everyone just jumped into action,” Sue Ferguson said. “The security, the police, they were all running over there and within 10 minutes the park had been cleared out.”

The event, which was organized by the Rotary Club of Whitby Sunrise and was scheduled to go until 7 p.m., was immediately suspended.

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