Dressed to shock

An Australian man built up such a huge static electric charge on his synthetic-material jacket, he left "left a trail of scorch marks and molten plastic behind him." The charge was estimated to be around 30,000 volts.

It was yesterday afternoon when Frank Clewer walked into a Warrnambool business and got his first shock.
"It sounded almost like a firecracker or something like that," he said.
"It was at the reception area. Within say, around five minutes, the carpet started to erupt," he said.
Burns the size of 10-cent pieces were left on the carpet where Mr Clewer had been standing.
Scientist Karl Kruszelnicki says it is likely the electrical build-up was caused by a number of factors, such as the synthetic clothes the man was wearing.
"This poor guy has built up static electricity thanks to an unfortunate combination of insulating clothes that he's wearing, static, synthetic clothes, just walking along and he's just building up this static charge everywhere," Dr Kruszelnicki said.

Of course, in Australia this would be winter, which explains the jacket. I'm still trying to figure out how they arrived at the 30,000 volts number.