Posted on 06/19/2009 3:10:13 PM PDT by AngieGal
A teenage girl survived a terrifying lightning strike after she was saved by the wire of her iPod.
Schoolgirl Sophie Frost and her boyfriend Mason Billington, both 14, stopped to shelter under a tree when a storm struck as they were walking near their homes.
Doctors believe Sophie survived the 300,000-volt surge only because it travelled through the gadget’s wire, diverting it away from her vital organs.
The teenager was taken to hospital and is recovering from burns to her chest and legs while Mason suffered damage to his eyes.
Both are expected to make a full recovery and Sophie may not even have a permanent scar.
She will be thankful she was wearing her iPod, which she had been given four days earlier as a gift from her grandmother.
Returning from hospital yesterday after three days of treatment, she said: ‘I’m just glad to be alive. I don’t remember a thing about what happened, but from what everyone tells me it’s a miracle I’m still here.
‘Everybody’s said the iPod must have diverted the lightning away from my body, which probably saved my life. I’ve got a few burns, but it’s all healing OK.’
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Which, I suspect, is why we and other like minded folks all live in Texas. :D
I have some nice tall lightning attractors up behind my house now. TVA high voltage transmission line steel towers. Every storm that passes over pops them at least once.
well that all depends on how much time it had to divert 300,000 volts over doesn’t it..
There is no way that it took all 300,000V but you would be amaze what a wire could do for a tenth of a second. It very well amy have saved her life..
unless you generate an arc for .1-.5 seconds that does not mean anything..
Well if you want to get *really* technical the lightning would have went through both her and the wire in proportions inverse to their impedance.
and they are right but to say ‘it was not the wire that saved here it was the vaporized wire’ is being jut a bit too picky don’t you think?
There is no doubt the wire did not survive the ordeal..
You know I finally got around to watching Twilight. I wish I could have those two hours back. It was drab.
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