Quote:Borrowed from Snopes:
Although cell phones being struck by bolts from the sky would seem less likely, it can happen, although probably more as a function of the person using the phone's being the tallest thing around when lightning happened to flash rather than anything having to do with the phone itself. In September 1999, a sales executive in Sri Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, was struck dead by lightning while talking on his cellular phone. The victim, 30-year-old Khor Chean Kit, was felled by a bolt after waiting out a storm in a shop for an hour and, only after the downpour eased, walking to his car while making a call. The bolt flung him several yards, and he died on arrival at a nearby clinic.

Cell phones (and cordless portable phones) used indoors during electrical storms are perfectly safe because there is no wire through which the electrical discharge could travel. (The belief that lightning can "follow the radio waves" into a cell phone is completely unfounded.) And although some people feel cell phones pose a risk when used outdoors because lightning is attracted to metal (it's not — metal is merely good at conducting electrical currents), handsets generally contain insignificant amounts of metal.