LIGHTNING STRIKES PHONE LINE!

[WaituiRob]

 A friend sent me a couple of photos of her phone which was damaged by a lightning strike on sat. night at Ballina.

     She was out at the time and on returning home could see a tree had been hit, then discovered pieces of the
  phone connections on the floor and the power was out in some points.

She was very lucky not to have been on the phone at the time.
 
Robyn.

[Laith]

Lucky she was on a cordless phone.

This is quite common for a lightning strike to travel long distances via the underground copper telephone network.

[Gunna Do]

One of the benefits of cordless phones.

[darren]

Should have used 6 B&S cable...

[bullfrog]

Lucky lady is she Rob. We missed most of storms here on Saturday, but what we did get was short & hard. Ulmarra, just North of Grafton got a good going over.

[Johnno convert]

Funny bugger Darren Seriously though it has been long documented the effects of lightning strike and acoustic shock on phones. Telstra brought out fuseable links many years ago to help alleviate the problem. The advent of cordless phones has isolated the handset from electric shock but you are still vulnerable to acoustic shock (in you ears) and many people have suffered hearing loss from this. The short of it is, regardless of your type of handset, if you don't really need to be on the phone during a thunderstorm, get off it.

[HEM19X]

During the floods of 2009, we had a lightning strike that blew our modem to pieces, but all of our phones were OK.

Hem

[WaituiRob]

I suppose I phrased it wrong when I said my friend was lucky she wasn`t on the phone at the time. I know she`d never be using the phone in a storm and neither would I , but there are people who believe it`s just a myth that
people can be injured this way.
 
Robyn.

[jclures]

Lightning and phones, I had a phone blown of the wall once here, and the house lights and sundries now twice with direct hits to the house.

[D4D]

There's a lot to be said for underground power and phone lines...

[blackstump]

During the floods of 2009, we had a lightning strike that blew our modem to pieces, but all of our phones were OK.

Hem

Had the same thing happen just recently. I was waiting to bid on something on ebay so had the computer on. Storm went over lightining hit a pole in the street and fried my modem and the blue cable socket in the back of my hard drive. Guess I wasnt meant to have that ebay item.......surge protector now fitted 

[Johnno convert]

and from telstra
http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/advice/shrieks-thunderstorms/
and this
http://www.7perth.com.au/view/today-tonight-articles/lightning-phone/
as stated this is not an old wives tale, these strikes happen!

[SteveandViv]

That looks like the power supply blew so I'm not sure it was a strike to a telephone line. Still lucky enough. She would have been fine if on the phone as there is no conduction to the handset wirelessly. It seems the short from the power supply blackened the line cord, hard to be sure.

As I am a Telephone Tech we see a lot of this up here. I work on phone systems though and we have replaced tons this year. It certainly not a wifes tail but with a cordless phone the power supply must be protected as well via a surge protector if possible