Heavy Metal Not Responsible For Lightning Strikes

A 37-year-old man out jogging near Vancouver, Canada suffered a broken jaw, second-degree burns and burst ear drums when his iPod headphones conducted a lightning flash into his head…

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that the man was not directly struck by lightning himself, but (as is more common) was hit by the ‘side flash’ when a nearby tree was struck. This caused opisthotonic muscle contraction (muscular spasm) which threw him over two metres. The iPod headphones then directed the charge to his ears and into his skull, where the rapid contraction of his jaw muscles caused a fracture, and the expansion of air inside the ear canal ruptured the eardrums.

A cartilage graft was later used to partially repair the man’s eardrums, but he has suffered 50% hearing loss due to the incident. Doctor Eric Heffernan of Vancouver General Hospital pointed out that there is no extra risk of being hit by lightning if you are listening to an iPod; in this case, it simply made the effects of the strike more severe than they might have been otherwise. According to a quote by Heffernan in New Scientist, “This could have happened with any player, not specifically an iPod… There is no increased risk of being struck by lightning when using an iPod – even if you’re listening to heavy metal.”



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