Just Enough

摘要

For one Canadian man, lightning and earphones don't mix, suggests correspondence published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Canadian doctors reported treating a patient who had second-degree burns on his neck, chest, left leg, and face. At the time of the injury, the patient was jogging outdoors and listening to an iPod when an adjacent tree was struck by lightning, throwing him nearly 8 feet from the tree. The patient's eardrums were ruptured and his mandible was fractured in four places, most likely because the muscles in his jaw violently contracted from the electric current. The authors note that lightning is often conducted on the outside of the body, so ossicular injuries are rare. In this patient, however, the combination of perspiration and the metal in his earphones helped direct the electric current from the lightning to his head.