http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...ightening.html
IPods and thunderstorms don't mix, doctors warn ...
Doctors are warning about the risks of personal stereo equipment after a Vancouver man listening to an iPod was zapped by lightning while jogging in a thunderstorm.
The 37-year-old man's ordeal is published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine under the title: Thunderstorms and iPods — Not a Good iDea.
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While the study didn't blame the device for attracting the lightning to the jogger, they did say the iPod made his injuries worse.
"Although the use of a device such as an iPod may not increase the chances of being struck by lightning, in this case, the combination of sweat and metal earphones directed the current to, and through, the patient's head," the doctors wrote.
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Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, an expert on the effects of lightning on the body, said the iPod didn't draw the lightning to the man.
"Metal doesn't attract lightning and there is very little metal in iPods anyway," said Cooper, an emergency-room physician and medical professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
"But once electricity contacts the iPod, then the metal will conduct the electricity and can cause secondary burns, as this gentleman had to his chest underneath where the iPod was and up where the wires went up into his ears, and possibly even cause enough muscle contraction that either caused the jaw fracture or perhaps he fell forward onto his jaw."
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Perhaps just something to keep in mind while cycling in bad weather.