Surgery was needed to patch the eardrums with grafts as well as to reset the jaw, which was dislocated from both joints, and to fix the bone, which was broken in four places. Heffernan said with this type of damage to the jaw, it's likely the man will develop arthritis in it, and at an early age.

Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, an expert on the effects of lightning on the body, said the iPod didn't draw the lightning to the man.

"Metal doesn't attract lightning and there is very little metal in iPods anyway," said Cooper, an emergency-room physician and medical professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.