iPods and lighting are a shockingly powerful combo

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 13 July 2007 21:06

Opinion and Analysis

If you’re outside and you’re in a thunderstorm (or one is brewing), turn off your iPod and remove the headphones from your ears – or you risk being zapped in the head!

Reports that iPod users are being badly zapped in the head by freak encounters with lighting, causing jaw breakages, popped eardrums, burn marks on the body where the headphones lay from the ears to the iPod and more are making iPod users think twice about listening outdoors when a thunderstorm is about.

Canadian specialist Dr Eric Heffernan was part of a medical team that wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine to report on the latest discoveries between the aural pleasures of iPod ownership and the dangers of iPod usage when outside in a storm.

Dr Heffernan said in the report that: "Most people hit by lightning get away with minor burns. It's because skin is highly resistant and stops electricity from entering the body. It's called the flashover effect -- although it can stop your heart and kill you."
 
The report also details the story of and injuries suffered by a 35-year old jogger who found himself in a storm, listening to an iPod, when lightning struck, even thought the jogger was trying to ‘safely’ stay under a tree.

Despite listening to ‘religious music’ at the time, the jogger’s eardrums were pierced, resulting in a 50% hearing loss that still affects the jogger to this day, along with burn marks and a jaw that immediately broke in four places, limiting the jogger’s religious fortune to leaving the encounter still actually alive, as opposed to losing his life altogether.

So, be safe when using iPods or any electronic device during storms and turn them off, as being struck by lightning is clearly an incredibly unpleasant and life-threatening experience, made worse by the digital experience.

It’s also pretty much the only example of where an iPod turn off turns out to be a welcome thing!