836 results match your criteria: "Lightning Injuries"

Article Synopsis
  • Electrical injuries can cause severe physical, emotional, and financial trauma to victims and their families, with high-voltage injuries to the skull being particularly damaging.
  • These injuries can lead to various traumas, such as burns, unique scars (Lichtenberg figures), and fractures due to falls or muscle spasms.
  • A reported case highlights a rare instance of burns from a high-tension wire on the skull, resulting in a lightning-shaped burn that partially penetrated the bone, indicating the need for greater awareness of electrical injuries' effects on bones.
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Complete pacemaker failure following lightning strike injury: A case report.

Pacing Clin Electrophysiol

November 2024

Department of Cardiology, Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil.

Article Synopsis
  • Modern cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) are designed to withstand external electric shocks, but the effects of lightning on these devices remain uncertain.
  • A case involving a 74-year-old man with a pacemaker struck by lightning revealed significant battery and lead damage, leading to the need for device replacement.
  • The differences in reactions to lightning between this patient and others may be influenced by factors like the type of pacemaker, the way the electric current spreads, and how the injury occurred.
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Lightning Strike Injuries.

Emerg Med Clin North Am

August 2024

Department of Emergency Medicine, Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center Main, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Charlotte, NC, USA.

Lightning is a common environmental hazard, and is a significant cause of global injury and death. Care and evaluation should follow general trauma guidelines, but several unique aspects of lightning injuries necessitate deviations from standard care that can improve survival and overall outcomes. When evaluating lightning strike patients, some common injury patterns are pathognomonic for lightning strikes and easy to recognize, while others are subtle and require heightened awareness.

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Use of Early Veno-Venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Following Lightning Strike-Induced Acute Lung Injury.

J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth

September 2024

ST7 Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Honorary Senior Lecturer / Consultant in ECMO, ICM and Anaesthetics, Glenfield Hospital, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Foundation Trust, Leicester, United Kingdom. Electronic address:

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Background: This study aimed to report a case of neurotrophic keratitis caused by lightning.

Case Presentation: A 38-year-old man was hit by lightning and suffered eye injury. He eventually developed neurotrophic keratitis.

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Lightning deaths in three outdoor dogs: A case study.

Res Vet Sci

July 2024

Department of Animal Health, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Mezzogiorno, Portici, Naples, Italy.

Article Synopsis
  • Three German Shepherds were found dead outside following a night of thunderstorms.
  • The report details the circumstances surrounding their deaths and any contributing factors.
  • This raises concerns about outdoor safety for pets during severe weather events.
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High-voltage electrical injuries, especially from lightning strikes, can cause life-threatening complications due to extreme temperature and voltage exposure. While burns and cardiac complications have been widely described, the documentation of metabolic imbalances, particularly hypokalemia, has not been as prevalent. This report focuses on a patient with profound transient hypokalemia following a lightning strike, alongside a review of three similar cases of transient hypokalemia from the literature.

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Lightning strike‑induced cauda equina syndrome: a case report.

Ideggyogy Sz

March 2024

Department of Neurology, University of Health Sciences, Gulhane Medicine School, Ankara, Turkey.

Article Synopsis
  • * Symptoms included numbness, burning sensations in the saddle region, and increased urinary urgency, with absent Achilles reflexes noted during examination.
  • * Electrophysiological studies confirmed nerve involvement despite normal MRI results, highlighting the importance of using electromyography to assess neurological issues after lightning strikes.
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Bangladesh has witnessed alarmingly rising lightning frequency, particularly during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. This has resulted in significant annual death tolls from lightning strikes over the past decade. Recognizing this crisis, the country officially declared lightning casualties a natural disaster in 2016.

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Seizure, A Shocking Effect of a Lightning Strike on Aerodrome: A Case Report.

Air Med J

March 2024

Moroccan Level 2 Hospital of Bunia, Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo, Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lightning injuries have a high morbidity and mortality because of the electrical effects on the circulatory, respiratory, and central nervous systems. Most lightning-related deaths occur immediately after injury due to fatal arrhythmias or respiratory failure. We describe the case of a patient who experienced a seizure and respiratory distress secondary to a lightning strike and how our team was able to stabilize and transport the patient.

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There is evidence that humans can survive a direct lightning strike to the head. Our question is: could water (rain) on the skin contribute to an increase in the survival rate? We measure the influence of rain during high-energy direct lightning strikes on a realistic three-compartment human head phantom. We find a lower number of perforations and eroded areas near the lightning strike impact points on the head phantom when rain was applied compared to no rain.

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Lethal accidents caused by lightning are divided into observed and unobserved events. Pathognomonic or characteristic findings are often overlooked during external postmortem examination. Classical mistakes may be made which may often lead to an incorrect diagnosis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Direct lightning strikes can lead to severe injuries, impacting multiple organ systems, and the prognosis varies based on injury severity.
  • A 35-year-old man suffered a direct lightning strike while in a portable toilet, leading to unresponsiveness and requiring extensive medical intervention, including CPR and vasopressor support.
  • Despite initial recovery, he ultimately succumbed to multi-organ failure due to complications like myocardial damage, lactic acidosis, and extensive burns.
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Predictors of mortality following electrical and lightning injuries in Malawi: A decade of experience.

Burns

April 2024

Department of Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 4001 Burnett Womack Building, CB 7050, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Department of Surgery, Kamuzu Central Hospital, Private Bag 149, Lilongwe, Malawi. Electronic address:

Introduction: Electrical injuries can be devastating, and data is lacking in low-resource settings. We aimed to identify predictors of mortality following electrical and lightning injuries (ELI) in Malawi.

Methods: We performed a retrospective observational study of patients presenting with ELI and burn injuries at a tertiary hospital in Malawi from 2011 to 2020.

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To explore the clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of patients with lightning injury on plateau in Tibet Autonomous Region, and to analyze the risk factors for heart injuries in these patients. A retrospective case series study was conducted. From January 2008 to July 2023, 55 patients with lightning injury who met the inclusion criteria were admitted to the General Hospital of PLA Tibet Military Area Command.

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Electric injuries (in the form of lightning or electric shock) may lead to various implications in the human body, the most important of which include neurological insults. The damage caused is influenced by the route of its entry into the body, its strength, and the duration of exposure. The muscles of the larynx receive motor supply from the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) (except cricothyroid, which gets innervation from the external laryngeal nerve).

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Lightning is a rare but potentially devastating cause of injury and mortality. The cutaneous burns associated with lightning strikes demonstrate peculiar pathognomonic signs and patterns. In this review of the literature, we discuss the epidemiology and etiology of lightning injuries, lightning compared to other forms of high voltage electrical injury, the clinical features of lightning injuries, the most common cutaneous manifestations associated with lightning strikes, and the treatment and prevention of lightning injuries.

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Lightning strike and Lichtenberg's figures.

Intensive Care Med

October 2023

Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Surgical and Trauma ICU, 45 Rue Cognacq Jay, 51100, Reims, France.

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