The popular Los Angeles area Venice Beach was swarming with nearly 30,000 people who were enjoying a day out in the nice weather and ocean breeze on Sunday, when a rare lightning storm hit without warning, killing one person and injuring about a dozen more.

Local paramedics were dispatched to Ocean Front Walk on Venice Beach around 2:15 p.m Sunday, after witnesses reported a massive crash of thunder that happened without warning. They also reported that the lifeguard headquarters in the area was showered with sparks at the time of the boom.

A 21-year-old college student, now identified as Nick Fagnano of Los Angeles, was rushed unresponsive to a hospital after the strike, where he later died.

According to witnesses, Fagnano had been in the water when the lightning hit, but authorities could not confirm those accounts.

Twelve other people, including a 15-year-old boy, were examined after the lightning strike. However, not all were necessarily actually struck by lightning, according to Katherine Main, a city fire spokeswoman.

Nine were taken to nearby hospitals, where one was listed in critical condition.

Beachgoer Steve Christensen said his friend was sitting on the beach when lifeguards began searching for a missing swimmer.

"He (Christensen's friend) went out to the water to find him and walked right into him," Christensen said. "He was face down on the bottom."

A 57-year-old man was also struck by lightning on a golf course on Santa Catalina Island. He is listed in stable condition.

Another witness, Stuart Acher, told KABC-TV that he was shocked by the freak lightning storm while playing volleyball on the beach.

"We went about our game and then all of a sudden, there was a big flash of light and a boom, and it felt like someone punched me in the back of my head," he told KABC-TV. "It went down my whole side of my right body, and my calves sort of locked up, and I fell over. And I looked up and everybody else was, you know, falling over."

Paramedics examined Acher, who went back to playing volleyball after getting the all-clear from paramedics.

“I heard this crackle,” a witness told CBS Los Angeles, “And there was this giant bolt of lightning shooting across the sky and the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard.”

According to all accounts, the lightning was completely unexpected and actually quite rare, so beachgoers would have had virtually no time to prepare for it.

"The first knowledge they had was when the lightning hit," Capt. Danny Douglas of the Venice lifeguard station said Monday.

Mayor Garcetti also weighed in on Sunday's weather event, stating that "This tragedy reminds us that we can take nothing for granted or underestimate the power of nature."

Hundreds of lightning strikes were reported around Southern California on Sunday as the result of a "moisture-laden monsoonal flow."

According to Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, "this is pretty rare" because the flow usually affects mainly the deserts and sometimes the mountains, while steering clear of the beach areas.