Figures & data
Table 1. Reported cases of lightning incidents where the victims were using mobile phones.
Figure 1. Leader development scenario prior to the final jump.
Figure 2. Streamer formation from a human body in the presence of a stepped leader tip. a. In the absence of a metal part; b. in the presence of a metal part
Figure 3. Human body with metal object and the lightning target.
Figure 4. The geometrical representation of the lightning return stroke channel in calculating the fields at a space point.
Figure 5. The approximated situation for the target and the human being with a metal part at head height.
Figure 6. COMSOL model of the target, the human body and the metal object arrangement for a 1 m separation between the target and the metal object.
Table 2. Characteristics of applied current waveforms.
Table 3. Peak electric field at various separations between the target and the sphere (D) for the target with resistivity 2.75 GΩ m (living tree).
Table 4. Peak electric field at various separations between the target and the sphere for the target with resistivity 10-8 Ω m (metal wire).
Figure 7. Electric field at the sphere with distance from the target for various current waveforms where the target is the tree.
Figure 8. Electric field at the sphere with distance from the target for various current waveforms where the target is the metal wire. Note that the critical field for corona inception from the sphere, EC, is marked by the solid line (Series8).
Table 5. Length and time for the streamers from the sphere to complete the side flash.
Data availability statement
The data pertinent to this paper could be provided to a reader on request made to the corresponding author.