(SHREVEPORT, La.) — A 17-year-old boy was killed over the weekend in an apparent lightning strike while hunting deer in Louisiana, authorities said.
Colton Gauge Honeycutt went missing while hunting alone on Saturday in the Bernice area, according to Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates.
His family members became concerned when he never returned from hunting and went looking for him, according to Gates. He was reported injured and Union Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies, along with the Bernice Fire Department and Pafford EMS, responded around 8:30 p.m. local time, the sheriff’s office said.
The first responders were directed to a remote, wooded area, where Honeycutt was located in an elevated deer stand, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Investigators believe Honeycutt was killed by a lightning strike when thunderstorms moved through the area, just before sunset Saturday evening,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The Union Parish Coroner’s Office pronounced the teen dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said.
The incident remains under investigation.
Gates told ABC News on Monday that his office is still awaiting the autopsy report.
“I’ve been doing this for 50 years — first time I’ve seen anything like this,” he told ABC News.
Bernice is located nearly 80 miles northeast of Shreveport.
The National Weather Service in Shreveport had advised that scattered showers and thunderstorms with “increasing severe potential” were moving across southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas into Louisiana Saturday afternoon.
Honeycutt’s death marked the 20th lightning fatality in the U.S., and the first in Louisiana, so far this year, according to the National Lightning Safety Council.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
