Posted 07.16.2007 at 11:28 am
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Caught outside in a lightning storm? Listening to a few tunes might seem like a good way to wait it out, but a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that this is a very bad idea. The paper details several cases of electronic-device-related injuries, including a particularly harrowing account of lightning-meets-iPod. In this instance, an unnamed Vancouver man was running in a park when he took shelter, hoping to wait for a storm to pass. Lightning struck a nearby tree, and witnesses report that the man was thrown about eight feet. On top of that, his iPod and earphones, along with the layer of sweat covering his skin, conducted the bolt's charge. The man’s injuries included a burn pattern that extended from his chest, where he’d been holding the device, to his ears, plus a broken jaw and permanent hearing loss. He's not alone: There have been several other reports of this phenomenon. So, next time you’re stuck in a storm, pocket your ear plugs and try belting out a few tunes of your own.—Gregory Mone
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Lightning is a mysterious force of nature indeed, and we'll never know if the conductive traces made by the earphones of the Ipod from the man's ears to his chest made him a more attractive target for the lightning or not, but I for one think it stands to reason that he may have been better off for wearing it.
Obviously, he didn't die from the incident (death is a common result of lightning strikes). I would like to posit that, just maybe, the wires for the Ipod earphones took the current from the lightning strike and provided it an alternative to passing through the man's core (and his heart) which would've disrupted its electrical rhythm and almost certainly killed him. If cardiac arrest is the alternative then are burns on the skin and hearing loss really all that bad?
I guess the bottom line is that if you're caught out in a lightning storm whether or not you're wearing an Ipod is the least of your worries. You need to get indoors!
didn't it say he WAS under shelter? "...an unnamed Vancouver man was running in a park when he took shelter..." Besides wouldn't the lightning just have hit the roof (tin, metal, whatever) and gone into the ground thereof? But yeah, I aggree.