Listening to MP3s from an iPod in a Storm Almost Killed Man

Lightning and music don't seem to go together very well, as an unfortunate man found out the hard way. He was jogging in Vancouver, Canada and listening to music on his MP3 player, when a lightning struck a tree nearby and his earphones conducted the electricity through his head.

Fortunately for him, it wasn't a direct hit, which most likely would have killed him, instead it was just a side flash, attracted by the metal wire in the earphones. However, the effects were not pretty at all, as both his eardrums burst and his jaw was fractured.

He didn't know or didn't care that metal in various devices attracts lightning like a magnet, or that jogging during a lightning storm is not a good idea.

Normally, the current can't penetrate the skin so easily, unless there's a conducting metal wire to lead electricity inside the body, a thing earphones can be really good at. He unwillingly attempted to break the world record at the high jump when his muscles contracted so much that he was thrown back over two meters.

This was caused by the property of the human muscles to contract when electricity passes through them, which also caused his jaw to snap. Two long, thin burn marks extended up his chest and the sides of his face and there were substantial burns inside his ears, reported Eric Heffernan of Vancouver General Hospital, who treated the man.

The ear-drums were patched with cartilage graft from another part of his body, but he has only recovered 50% of his hearing and must use hearing ads. The iPod was destroyed beyond repair.

"We couldn't find any reports of similar events [involving headphones] in the medical literature," said Hefferman, but this doesn't mean that it can't happen again. People have been struck by lightning while talking on cellphones, but this is the first time an iPod was involved.

See how you can avoid being hit by lightning here.