“They had taken shelter under a tree,” Paris city councilor Karen Taieb told Agence France-Presse.

An off-duty fireman near the park, a popular weekend spot for Paris’s well-to-do, ran to the scene and saw nine people lying on the ground under a tree, Moulin told AP.

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The off-duty fireman delivered first aid to victims; “without his actions, it would have been much worse,” Moulin said.

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The victims had burns, Vincent Baladi, an official in Paris’s eighth district, said on iTELE television.

“We hope they will all pull through,” he told the station, according to AFP. “The lightning struck suddenly.”

France’s families minister, Laurence Rossignol, tweeted, “all my thoughts are with the children” injured and their families.