'Ear we go again

There’s nothing quite like the thrill and exhilaration of sliding down a slippery dip – although it has been a fair while since I partook of that particular pleasure. But it can, and does, carry a hidden danger for some children. Static electricity. For most of us, it may just make our hair stand on end. For kids with cochlear implants, it’s a fast slide into silence as the static can shut down (nontechnical term = fry) their cochlear implants in an instant – and cost up to $1,000 to have the device reprogrammed.
According to a Wired article, static electricity has been a problem for the implants since they first became available in the mid-1980s. "One of the first children to have an implant erased its memory by simply pulling a sweater over her head, and had to have the device replaced." (We assume the “its” in that sentence refers to the implant not the child.)
By hooking sensors to children as they slid down slides in St. Louis and Tucson, Arizona, researchers found that children easily built up 25,000 volts of electricity, the limit of the measuring devices. They equated it to "a pretty good lightning bolt." (The problem is with plastic slides not the metal variety – although the metal ones are not favoured as they can get very hot in Sumner I guess that could lead to a different type of “frying”.)
The solution? They’re looking at dynast types of coatings to dissipate the charge – but in the meantime, it’s the metal slide or no slide. Hmm. As if the kids didn’t have enough to contend with.