On Saturday, December 15, 2018 at 4:16:47 AM UTC-5, Brian Gaff wrote:
Well the answer is that it depends Normally static at home is not dangerous
as the voltage is very high but the current is low and the duration brief.
I'd expect no more damage to the eye than if it got scratched by flying
debris or whatever, and I'm sure we have all experienced that.
Obviously there are places and nerves that can be affected, and there are
lots of nerves in the finger tips and parts of the face, but generally
things get back to normal in a few hours.
Having been near two lightning strikes I can tell you its not pleasant, but
if your friend really had experienced a lightning strike directly to the
phone line the phone and her would be toast. No matter how earthed a device
is, it cannot cope with the huge current of lightning.

That isn't true. If it was, telephone central offices would be routinely
blown up by lightning, so would internet services, computer centers
and similar. All have lightning hits on lines that go into the building.
All are protected by tiered layers of protection. You can do
the same with your house. First thing, if the lightning hit an overhead
phone line outside the house, the vast majority of the energy isn't going
to make it inside, to her phone, even with no protection. The voltages are
so high that arc over occurs. And with tiered surge protection inside,
the rest of the surge can be dealt with.