Deadly lightning strike ends family vacation

Matthew Glomb had been looking forward to spending time with his son this week on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

But the father-son trip ended tragically Monday evening when Glomb was struck by lightning while jogging along the beach near his retirement home. Rescue officials in Southern Shores, N.C., said he was killed instantly.

Glomb’s Lake Ridge neighbor and good friend of nearly 30 years, Joe Malinowski, said Glomb spent a lot of time at the beach, and was excited for the family getaway.

The retired Coast Guard officer and attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, along with his wife Lucy, son Alex and daughter Emily, had been at the beach house for about a week.

Lucy Glomb and their daughter had just returned home Monday night to drop off one of Emily’s friends and pick up another before heading back down. Alex, along with some of his college pals, stayed at the beach.

It was going to be the last family trip this summer before Alex returned to James Madison University this fall for his junior year of college and Emily headed back to class at Woodbridge High School, neighbors said.

When Lucy Glomb heard the news about her husband’s death, she called many of her close knit neighbors, including Malinowski.

“She said ‘I wouldn’t want you to hear about this from anyone else,’ and she called all of us last night,” he said.

Glomb was remembered Tuesday as not only a consummate career and family man, but also a man of the church. He was an auxiliary pastor at Old Bridge United Methodist Church in Lake Ridge.

Pastor Burton Robinson said he was one of the top members in his church.

“He led a mission trip to North Carolina for at least six or seven years, he worked with youth … did a whole lot of different things and did a whole lot for the church,” said Burton.

Malinowski said his latest youth mission trip, in North Carolina somewhere off of Interstate 95, was to install a handicapped ramp at a home of a disabled person.

Mary Jane McQuade, who lives next to the Glombs, remembered the holiday block parties the family helped organize three times a year. She said his passing is made even sadder because Thursday would have marked the couple’s 26th wedding anniversary.

She also received a call Monday night from Lucy Glomb.

“The first words out of her mouth were ‘isn’t it a shame this happened to Mister Safety?’” said McQuade.

She said Matthew Glomb always saw to it that everyone had a good time while ensuring they stayed as safe as possible.

McQuade held a copy of the “Cruel Sea” in her hands, a book Glomb gave to her son. Inside the front cover was an inscription that read, “Stay close to your parents … while not salty, they’re worth their salt.”

Malinowski said he’s also received an inspirational note from Glomb.

“The Vietnam War kind of got in the way of me graduating from college in 1969, but 30 years later I got my degree in 1996 and he sent me a note that said ‘your work matters to God.’ That was just the kind of person he was,” said Malinowski.

Last summer, another lightning strike claimed the life of a 23-year-old Woodbridge woman jogging along the oceanfront in Virginia Beach.

The woman was vacationing at the resort town after graduating from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.

Officials said there had also been severe weather in the area when the woman was killed.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.