2006.06.20
Fan death
Comments
As long as I can remember, my mom’s been telling me that falling
asleep in the same room as a running fan could make a person very ill,
if not kill her. As backup she would always bring up the case of my
oldest maternal uncle, who supposedly fell into a deadly fever after
exposure to a running fan through the night. Or perhaps he was nearly
swept out to sea. Whatever! The point is that I’ve had this phobia of
electric fans following me my whole life, and my friends think I’m crazy
for it. Fortunately, I don’t tell anyone that I still suffer panic
attacks if I wake up in a room with a running fan. Or perhaps it’s cute
instead of insane?
Just so you know, this comes the closest to describing my irrational fear:
If the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing.Sound ridiculous when it’s written out like that, doesn’t it? Although my favorite quote from the article is:
In summer, mainstream Korean news sources regularly report on cases of fan death, even if more likely causes (e.g. heart attack, gunshot, alcohol poisoning) are evident.Gunshot??