THE DANGERS OF iPODS

We've already heard of a smattering of people put in hospital because they were so intent on shuffling that they didn't hear the bus coming up behind them, but now news reaches us of another risk: lightning strikes.

One minute, Jason Bunch was mowing his lawn in Castle Rock, Colorado, listening to Metallica on his iPod. The next thing he knew, he was in bed, bleeding from his ears and vomiting.

To be honest, that's not unusual when listening to Metallica, but the burnt tshirt suggested that maybe something else had gone on.

Bunch's ears were burned on the inside, and he's lost some hearing, mostly on the right side. His hair was singed.

His face, chest, hands and right leg have freckle-size welts on them as if buckshot had come from inside his body out.

The wounds follow the line of his iPod, from his ears down his right side to his hip, where he was carrying the device. The iPod has a hole in the back, and the earbuds dissolved into green threads.

The scientific thinking seems to be that, although the iPod didn't attract the lightning, the cabling provided a route for the electricity to flow through.

The answer, by the way, to our quiz question "what kind of person cuts his grass during a thunderstorm" was "A Metallica fan, clearly."

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