Heroic father, 59, is fatally struck by lightning after warning children to get off the beach - as his heartbroken girlfriend reveals his poignant last words

Tributes have poured in for a heroic beachgoer who was fatally struck by lightning as he warned children to flee an oncoming thunderstorm. 

Patrick Dispoto, 59, was leaving a New Jersey beach on Sunday with his girlfriend when the tragedy unfolded, after he turned back to the beach when he realized lifeguards had left for the day. 

'He said, "I’ll be right back,"' Dispoto's girlfriend Ruth Fussell told News12 New Jersey. 

When the 59-year-old failed to return, she found him laying lifeless on the beach surrounded by witnesses who saw him get struck by lightning. 

Fussell spoke through tears as she recalled Patrick's final moments, and said she even tried to convince him not to turn back to help others left behind on New Jersey's Seaside Park beach. 

'I said, 'You have no business going back,'' she recalled. 

'He says, "I’m just going to warn these kids because the sky is going to open. I’m just going to warn these kids, one minute." I said, ‘No.'' 

After making sure she was safely inside their car, Ruth said Patrick walked back to the beach to help children and families clear before the thunderstorm rolled in. 

But she said she called him three times with no answer and waited around 15 minutes, before racing to the beach to find Patrick on the ground, and with the children nowhere in sight. 

Ruth began desperate CPR efforts with other witnesses, however Patrick was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital. 

'The doctor said 45 minutes after the brain has no oxygen, you have to unplug him,' she said. 'I said, ‘No, you can’t.'' 

She paid tribute to her boyfriend as a selfless and generous man who would often help others in need. 

'His last act of heroism was his ultimate, and that’s my Patrick Dispoto,' she said. 

The father-of-two's son Cole Dispoto told CBS New York that he was told his father died as a result of the lightning strike. 

'From my understanding there was a lightning strike not too far away, which most likely hit the sand, and sand conducts electricity very well,' he said. 

'(The electricity) went through and his body was the first thing it ran into.' 

'My father was someone who would always put others before himself,' added his daughter. 

According to News12, the tragedy on Seaside Park beach comes as it is having three lightning warning systems installed. 

The systems, approved in April, will cover the beach's mile-and-a-half-long coastline, and will send an alert to beachgoers to clear the area if lightning approaches. 

Dispoto's death on Seaside Park beach comes three years after the death of lifeguard Keith Pinto, 19. 

Pinto was struck by lightning as he tried to help others off the beach, where four others were also injured during a strike. 

The 19-year-old now has a stretch of the beach named after him in his honor.