Intended for healthcare professionals

  1. News & Views
  2. Injury from lightning...
  3. Injury from lightning strike while using mobile phone
Letters

Injury from lightning strike while using mobile phone

BMJ 2006; 332 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.332.7556.1513-b (Published 22 June 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:1513
  1. Swinda Esprit, senior house officer in otorhinolaryngology (swinda{at}runbox.com),
  2. Prasad Kothari, specialist registrar in otorhinolaryngology,
  3. Ram Dhillon, consultant in otorhinolaryngology
  1. Northwick Park Hospital, Middlesex HA1 3UJ
  2. Northwick Park Hospital, Middlesex HA1 3UJ

    EDITOR—We report the case of a 15 year old girl who was witnessed being struck by lightning while using her mobile phone in a large park in London during stormy weather. The girl has no recollection of events because she had an asystolic cardiac arrest.

    She was successfully resuscitated, but one year later she was a wheelchair user with complex physical, cognitive, and emotional problems, as well as a persistent perforation of the left tympanic membrane with associated conductive hearing loss on the side she was holding the mobile phone.

    If someone is struck by lightning the high resistance of human skin results in lightning being conducted over the skin without entering the body; this is known as flashover.1 This phenomenon has a low mortality. Conductive materials in direct contact with skin such as liquids or metallic objects disrupt the flashover and result in internal injury with greater morbidity and mortality.

    To our knowledge, no similar cases have been reported in the medical literature. We found three cases reported in newspapers in China, Korea, and Malaysia.2–4 All these events resulted in death after the people were struck by lightning while using their mobile phones outdoors during storms.

    This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to highlight the risk of using mobile phones outdoors during stormy weather to prevent future fatal consequences from lightning strike injuries related to mobile phones.

    The Australian Lightning Protection Standard recommends that metallic objects, including cordless or mobile phones, should not be used (or carried) outdoors during a thunderstorm.5 We could not find any advice from British telecommunication companies.

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    References

    1. 1.↵
      1. Mason AD,
      2. Crockett RK
      . When lightning strikes… A case report and review of the literature. Int Paediatr 2000;15 (3).
    2. 2.↵
      Cell phone could have led to death of tourist on Great Wall. China View 2004 Aug 15. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/15/content_3355652.htm (accessed 14 Jun 2006).
    3. 3.
      1. Ah-young C
      . Man talking on cell phone dies from lightning injury. Korea Times 2004 March 8: 16.42.
    4. 4.↵
      1. Man using cell phone killed by lightning.
      Singapore Straits Times 1999 Sept 11: 40.
    5. 5.↵
      Australian Lightning Protection Standard AS/170, National Lightning Safety Institute (2004). See: Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology. The WA Stormspotter. Vol 8, No 1, 20 December 2004. Storm safety: mobile and cordless phones. www.bom.gov.au/weather/wa/sevwx/spdec04.shtml (accessed 14 Jun 2006).
    Back to top