I think she probably got an electric shock, too. As she's easily spooked this will have caused her to freak and she will have jumped for the easiest upwards escape routes (cats always go for height when startled), and your friend's face was the cat's natural escape route.
In all my years of owning much loved and loving cats, there's just no predicting these spooked moments, nor controlling the involuntary use of claws to escape them. Animals are supersensitive to electricity so if you get a little belt off your car door that makes you wince, if you were a cat it would send you 20 feet into the air.
So, not an attack, a static belt that accidentally hurt your friend.
Check out my avatar - Big Sam hasn't had a shock yet but my Beau won't go near the keyboard since he had a similar event, thankfully he just went vertically upwards and sent my G&T flying.
Don't worry, this sort of thing happens so infrequently that it will almost certainly never ever happen in your experience again, but I would ask your cats not to sit on the computer when your trying to work.