It’s got to be difficult to carry the fame that the Apple iPod enjoys without getting some bad press once in a while. A couple months ago we saw that the player can adversely affect pacemakers, and today an article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine stating that wearing your iPod in a Thunderstorm might not be the best idea.

The report cited a case at a hospital in Canada where a man was out jogging during a thunderstorm when lightning struck a tree that was next to him. As a result, the man was thrown about 8 feet, suffered some burns, a jaw fracture and blown out eardrums.

The physicians that treated the man concluded that the injuries he sustained were due to the iPod he was wearing. The burns were found on his chest where the iPod was being worn, and followed the path of his earphones up his neck and to his ears. The lightning in the earbuds caused his eardrums rupture, and the electrical current through his head caused him to clench his jaw hard enough to fracture it.

The study went on to say that iPods most likely do not increase the likeliness of being struck by lightning, but the report seems to imply that these injuries may not have occurred had he not been wearing an iPod or “such device”.

This certainly isn’t going to keep me from using my iPod, but I’m thinking about picking up some type of iPod speaker accessory, just in case.

NEJM via MSN