Question

Lightning flash can cause injury by all of the following, except:

• A. Direct effect of the electric current
• B. Superheated air
• C. Expanded and repelled air
• D. Compressed air pushed in front of the current

Hint:

Three mechanisms are real (current, superheated air, expanding blast); one wording is the odd one out.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

This is an except question, so list the genuine ways lightning hurts a person and then spot the odd description left over. There are three well-described mechanisms. The first is electrical: the enormous current can flow through the victim and stop the heart, fry nerves and produce burns, which validates the direct-current option. The second is thermal: the bolt heats the air in its path to extreme temperatures, and that superheated air scorches and burns nearby tissue, which validates the superheated-air option. The third is mechanical: the sudden, violent heating makes the air expand explosively and then rush outward, the same expansion we hear as thunder, and this expanding, repelled air can hurl and injure the person, which validates that option too. What remains is the idea of a slug of compressed air being driven ahead of the current, and that is not how lightning blast injury is understood; the damage comes from rapid expansion and outward repulsion of air, not a pushed-forward compressed column. So the statement that does not belong is the compressed-air one. $D$ is the exception. \[\boxed{\text{Compressed air pushed in front of the current}}\]