ITALY — An unlucky man was struck by lightning and killed moments after he finished scattering his younger brother’s cremated ashes on a picturesque mountain top. He was climbing down a ladder when a bolt struck him, and his body fell nearly 1,000 feet to the rocks below.

Police say that 41-year-old Federico Dean was most likely dead from the lightning strike before his body landed at the base of the mountain. An accompanying friend was also injured, but only suffered burns.

The fatal accident occurred at the Jof di Montasio mountain peak in the Julian Alps. Judging from the photo of the peak (below), it looks as ominous as Mount Doom of Mordor with that black cloud.

Frodo could have probably also taken the ring to this mountain.

Dean didn’t just decide to climb a mountain during a lightning storm and scatter his brother’s ashes. The storm moved in rapidly and unexpectedly, as they tend to do on mountains.

A person who’s never been on a huge mountain top before might assume that you could look WAY off into the distance and see any approaching storm within 200 miles. Sometimes you can, but that’s not always the case. For example: You could be too busy weeping over your dead brother to notice.

By the time the storm rolled in, Dean only had two choices: 1) Stay on the mountain top during the lightning storm, or 2) climb down the mountain on a metal ladder during the lightning storm.

Personally, I would have curled up on the mountain and covered my body in tiny rocks.

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