The popular press loves to harp on iPods, and their potential to cause hearing loss due to loud music pumped through embedded earbuds. Looks like there's something else, a little more drastic and a lot less common to worry about in regards to your hearing: getting struck by lightning while wearing an iPod. A middle-aged man was jogging in a thunderstorm (ok, not the smartest move, but hey) when a tree he was standing next to was struck by lightning, which threw him 8 feet from the tree. At the ER, he was treated for burns which extended from his chest up his neck and sides of his face and into his outer ears, "corresponding to the positions of his earphones at the time of the lightning strike." His eardrums were ruptured, from the sudden expansion of air in the ear, and his jawbone was broken (shown in panel A), likely from an extreme muscle contraction. The malleus, and inner ear bone, had become dislocated (shown in panel B, with the arrow showing where it is, and the arrowhead showing where is should be.) Worst of all, a huge blood clot, as pointed to by the arrow in 'C,' filled up the middle ear!
While it is important to note that wearing an iPod won't increase the liklihood of getting struck by lightning, "in this case the combination of sweat and metal earphones directed the current to, and through the patient's head."
Heffernan et al. Thunderstorms and iPods-Not a Good Idea. NEJM. 357;2, 198-99.
Hat tip Tazo for the story.
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Not to be too harsh but - you want to be popular press eh? Your article had nothing really to do with ipods, but rather with earphones, of whatever type. It sounds just like a popular press article capitalizing on the ipod name. (And it worked I guess since I am responding...). I would like to see less use of iPod in the media when talking about a generic thing. It grates me just like when people use Windows to mean all PC's.
One wonders how long it will be before Apple is pressured by lawyers into putting prominent warning labels on their equipment, cautioning users to not use them in thunderstorms.
Sort of like how hair dryers come with warning labels saying you shouldn't use them in the shower -- a definite example of how society thwarts natural selection, alas.
Other stories of interest:
Authorities use iPod to ID crash victim
A bicyclist died in a traffic accident. He was not carrying ID, but police were able to identify him by tracking the serial number of his iPod. Of course, if he waspaying attention to traffic instead of listening to his iPod, maybe he wouldn't have been run over by a bus.
Another sad story:
Train, iPod deadly combo for cyclist
You Markk have been rude t' a lady and should apologize post haste. Seriously why be you such a dick?
lol Garibaldi, but don't bother. The authors of the journal article themselves called it 'Thunderstorms and iPods Not a Good Idea.' Which, they arent.
Headphones, and walkmen, and radio, etc also aren't a good idea in thunderstorms. However, if you read the article, the person struck by lightning was struck from the side, where he was carrying his ipod. It traveled from the pod through the wires in the earbuds, into his head. So its very unlikely that without the ipod as conduit the electricity would have been channeled in such a way. Also, this is a case study and this person did have an ipod. Mention of it is relevant, as deemed by the authors, the publishers, as well as myself.
Manatee photos on Google maps
It would be interesting to know if the victim was leaning against the tree while standing next to it. My guess is that his head was near the tree trunk and his feet a few inches away from it, in which case he was likely a victim of ground potential rise. As the bolt of tens of thousands of amps passed down through the resistance of the tree tissue, a voltage of perhaps several thousand volts was induced between his head and his feet. That, in turn, caused some of the current to pass through the victim. Because the copper wires of the ipod earphones provided a much lower resistance path between his waist (where he was presumably wearing the device itself) and his head than did the trunk of his body, he got zapped in his ears.
What really got him in trouble was ignoring the age-old advice not to stand under a tree during a T storm if you can help it. Especially not one of the higher trees in an area. The iPod earphone only focused the damage on his ears, and probably burns near where he was wearing the iPod player. Instead he should have gone out in the open a dozen or two yards from tall trees and stooped with his feet as close together as possible and avoid balancing himself with a hand if he can help it. The stooping reduces the target profile, and the feet close together minimize exposure to ground potential rise. The latter is why electric utility line men and women are trained to bunny hop away from live wires lying on the ground as opposed to walking.
OW. Seriously. Ow. I wonder what the prognosis is for this guy regaining his hearing? Re-locating a stapes does not sound like an easy surgery. And you'd have to assume the guy lost some hair cells as well, which ain't comin' back (unless Shelly's thesis is more exciting than she's letting on - good luck writing, btw, I know it can be misery). Do the authors mention any balance problems?
On the otherhand, if the current had gone through his central nervous system instead of his earphone wires, then he could have been killed.
This study suffers from the obvious lack of a control jogger to determine whether or not the iPod saved a life.