A Pinellas County science teacher suffered a catastrophic crash when lightning struck him as he cycled down a mountain in the Peruvian Andes.<\/p>\n
James Fernandez, 41, was riding downhill with another tourist and their guide near Cusco, Peru, on Nov. 26 when lightning struck all three men. Fernandez\u2019s friend, Minnesota resident Yuri Botelho, was killed on the spot.<\/p>\n
Fernandez survived the strike but lost consciousness on his bike, friends said, before suffering a crash that broke his neck. The guide also was seriously injured but managed to call for help.<\/p>\n
Fernandez underwent surgery to relieve complications from his injuries that were making breathing difficult, said Austin Mautner, a close friend. Fernandez had been in and out of consciousness, Mautner said, but as of Dec. 1 he remained intubated and sedated at a hospital in Peru.<\/p>\n
He suffered a burn on his foot, where the lightning may have exited, Mautner said, but the more serious injuries came from the crash. Doctors are trying to stabilize him so he can travel to a trauma center in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter he\u2019s stable enough, the first thing is to medically evacuate him,\u201d said Bryan Lieberman, another close friend. \u201cWe\u2019re told that can cost a couple hundred thousand dollars between the plane and the medical care on board. We don\u2019t know what his mobility is going to look like \u2014 he has injuries to his spinal cord \u2014 but they\u2019ll start to assess that once he\u2019s back in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
A world traveler who has led bicycling tours around the globe, his friends said, Fernandez was in Peru for Thanksgiving break with his wife, Alexis, and their infant son. Botelho\u2019s wife and that couple\u2019s baby had joined them on the vacation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not inexperienced,\u201d Mautner said. \u201cHe\u2019s a very avid rider, both street and mountain bike, and this excursion wasn\u2019t anything extremely challenging. It was just a freak accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fernandez, who is from South Florida, teaches science at Palm Harbor Middle School and heads the school\u2019s science department. He started there in 2022, a Pinellas County Schools spokesperson said, and he has worked for the district since 2020.<\/p>\n
Prior to that, he worked for the international touring company Backroads.<\/p>\n
Mautner said Fernandez had recently been teaching his other son, who is 8, to mountain bike.<\/p>\n
By Dec. 1, a GoFundMe campaign raising donations for Fernandez\u2019s recovery had surpassed $76,000 in its first 20 hours.<\/p>\n
Friends credited the speed of the donations to the ties Fernandez has forged worldwide, having spent time living and working in Spain, Ecuador, Costa Rica and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that James has done his whole life is keep his friends close,\u201d said Lieberman, a friend of Fernandez since high school. \u201cI\u2019d call him a brother. I wish I could say I\u2019m special in that way, but everyone who knows him feels the same way. When you run tours around the world, and you\u2019re part of the community as a teacher, it helps.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut while that almost $80,000 looks nice, we know he\u2019s going to need a lot of help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz Castro, an eighth-grade student in Fernandez\u2019s class at Palm Harbor Middle School, said he hopes the teacher, one of his favorites, recovers quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the kind of teacher who can always help you make your day better,\u201d Castro said. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re, like, behind, he\u2019ll help you catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pinellas County science teacher suffered a catastrophic crash when lightning struck him as he cycled down a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[41179,1701,41180,41178,596,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-71876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-mountain-biking","9":"tag-palm-harbor","10":"tag-palm-harbor-middle-school","11":"tag-peruvian-andes","12":"tag-pinellas-county","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}