Beware iPods in thunderstorms
Friday, July 13th, 2007The New England Journal of Medicine is reporting that a man was injured by lightning while jogging and wearing an iPod. Doctors from the Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, B.C. report that the man suffered punctured eardrums, a broken jaw and second-degree burns on his chest, head, and left leg.
They attribute his broken jaw to the fact that the man was wearing the iPod, which caused the lightning strike (a side flash from a nearby tree) to pass through his head, causing a violent contraction of his jaw muscles. They stated that usually in lightning strikes of this nature, the high resistance of human skin keeps the flash traveling on the outside of the body.
The combination of body sweat and the metal from the iPod headset, however, caused the lightning to penetrate the jogger’s body, resulting in more substantial injuries.
