Dark Knight
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2004
- Messages
- 21,649
- Reaction score
- 82
Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires.
Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn.
Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms.
Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Mass., who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones. They are described on his Web site, http://www.struckbylightning.org
Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.
"It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago.
When lightning jumps from a nearby object to a person, it often flashes over the skin. But metal in electronic devices or metal jewelry or coins in a pocket can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage.
On the Net: http://www.nejm.org
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/
More of this story at this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_hi_te/ipods_lightning&printer=1
Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn.
Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms.
Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Mass., who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones. They are described on his Web site, http://www.struckbylightning.org
Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.
"It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago.
When lightning jumps from a nearby object to a person, it often flashes over the skin. But metal in electronic devices or metal jewelry or coins in a pocket can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage.
On the Net: http://www.nejm.org
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/
More of this story at this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_hi_te/ipods_lightning&printer=1