Official News - page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: MOBILE PHONES AND THUNDERSTORMS: NOT A GOOD MIX

This probably qualifies as overblown health scare of the week. Apparently, talking on a mobile phone while in the middle of a thunderstorm is not a good idea. Doctors in the UK have recently warned that there is a danger of being struck by lightning when using your mobile outside in stormy weather.

The British Medical Journal has highlighted the case of a teenager left with severe injuries after being struck by lightning while chatting on her phone. The metal in the phone, they say, directs the current into the body. Normally when a person is hit by lightning, the high resistance of human skin causes the charge to flow over the body - this is known as an 'external flashover'. But some of the current can flow through the body, and the more that does so, the more internal damage it causes. Conductive materials such as liquid or metal objects in direct contact with the skin increases the risk this will happen.

A few years ago, a woman in a London park was hit by lightning and suffered damage because the current was carried by her underwired bra!

The doctors who treated the teenager found details of three other people being hit by lightning while talking on a mobile, in China, Korea and Malaysia. All three died of their injuries. So you have been warned!

Wait a minute - three cases? In the whole world? It's not exactly a high risk, then, is it? Still, this urgent warning from the concerned doctors has been reprinted in many newspapers, so no doubt people are going to be panicking about one more darn thing that is never likely to happen to them.

Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page