Did you know that you can get hurt bad (even killed) by lightning if you are listening to your iPod or talking on your cell phone during a thunderstorm? The danger of talking on a landline telephone or even standing near electrical appliances was known for a long time.
But cell phones? iPods? According to a case study published by British Medical Journal (BMJ), a 15 year old girl was hit by lightning while talking to her friend on her cell phone in a thunderstorm.
She had a heart attack but was saved.
After the incident she did not remember anything about the incident.
Memory loss is a frequent side effect of lightning hits.
But the people who witnessed the event confirmed the report.
A year later the British lightning victim developed a number of additional ailments, including deafness in the ear where she was holding her cell phone.
However, the danger is not a universally accepted one.
Some U.
S.
sources deny the danger, claiming there is no direct relationship between a lightning and cell phone and iPod usage.
But there is a universal consensus that carrying metallic objects in a thunderstorm is not a good idea.
Since both cell phones and iPods do have metallic parts, it makes inherent logical sense not to carry such items when there is a thunderstorm out there.
An interesting factoid from news.
BBC.
co.
uk: "A lightning bolt travels at about 14,000 miles per hour and heats up the air around it to 30,000°C - five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
" Would you want to press against your ear any gadgets in a thunderstorm that have even the remotest probability of transferring 30,000°C heat at 14,000 miles per hour? It's your call.
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