You are not struck by lightning
When a cable becomes a danger (Photo: Hrecheniuk Oleksii / Shutterstock)
Wireless controllers are now the standard on the latest consoles. A man from Tennessee nevertheless resorted to the cable variant – and was punished.
There are many things that your parents tell you from a young age: do not jump from the edge of the pool, do not run with scissors in hand and should there be a thunderstorm, all electrical devices must be unplugged. A man from Robertson County, Tennessee, in the United States, did not take the last piece of advice to heart and suffered a shock – in the truest sense of the word.
As Kotaku reports a storm raged near the man’s house. Since it wasn’t particularly inviting outside, the man decided after dinner to sit down in front of the console and play a game. Classic with a cable on the controller. When lightning struck nearby due to the storm, the surprised gamer felt it directly through the cable of the controller in the form of a shock.
The man called an ambulance himself and the paramedics discovered that he was indeed struck by lightning. However, he was still doing so well that he was checked through once and no longer had to be transported to a local hospital.
What sounds like a story from a fairy tale book is actually not that unlikely. In June 2020, professional Rocket League player Karma wrote on Twitter that she was struck by lightning through her controller. End of story: The controller had melted and she had to be treated with minor burns on her hands.
If you haven’t switched to wireless controllers yet, you might be better off doing so. Especially when a thunderstorm is wreaking havoc outside. This means that the risk of shock from a lightning strike is at least less than it already is.
