Safety Tip: Switch off your iPod during thunderstorms
Listening to your iPod during thunderstorms is really not a good idea, experts say. The reason isn’t aesthetics — it’s safety. A recent case of a 37-year-old, iPod-wearing Canadian man, who had sustained multiple injuries after a tree nearby was hit by a lightning, was described in the July 12 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
The patient had second-degree burns on his chest and left leg. In addition, two linear burns extended along his anterior chest and neck to the sides of his face, terminating in substantial burns in the external auditory meatus bilaterally, corresponding to the positions of his earphones at the time of the lightning strike. Both of his tympanic membranes were ruptured, and he had a severe conductive hearing deficit. He also had a mandibular fracture.
According to experts, although people may be struck directly by lightning, it is more common for the lightning to jump to a person from a nearby object, such as a tree — known as side flash phenomenon.
The skin has high resistance to electric current. Unless something interrupts the flow, the lightning is often conducted over the surface of the body - called a “flashover.”
This phenomenon didn’t happen to the patient. His iPod didn’t draw the lightning strike. But when the flashover hit the iPod resting against the man’s sweaty skin, it drew in the powerful electric current. The man was thrown approximately 8 ft (2.4 m) from the tree, which has caused an additional blunt trauma to the patient.
Although the iPod does not increase your risk being struck by a lightning, it poses another danger.
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That was scary.
Scary indeed. But I don’t have an iPod.
Yeah, that’s an advantage. I don’t have one, too.