BMJ  2006;333:96 (8 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7558.96

Letter

Injury from lightning strike while using mobile phone

Statistics and physics do not suggest a link

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The letter by Esprit et al reporting a case of injury from lightning strike while using a mobile phone required some better research into the physics of lightning, conductors, and statistics.¹

Firstly, the statistics are few. Three mentions of people using a mobile phone while being hit by a lightning strike is by no means compelling evidence for a correlation for either the strike or unusually serious injury. Indeed, one of the pieces of evidence does not support the theory of a mobile phone causing serious injury: "Last year, 10 tourists seeking shelter [were] struck by lightning when one of them was using a mobile phone. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured."² Not enough evidence is presented to argue that use of a mobile phone either attracted the strike or caused serious injury.

Secondly, the suggestion that the metal in a mobile phone is channelling the path of . . . [Full text of this article]

Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE rmf25@cam.ac.uk

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Rapid Responses:

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Authors' Reply

Swinda Esprit, et al.
bmj.com, 10 Jul 2006 [Full text]

The effect on the mobiles

Ramsey M Faragher
bmj.com, 12 Jul 2006 [Full text]

Amalgam fillings and lightning

Phillip J. Colquitt
bmj.com, 13 Jul 2006 [Full text]