I don't wanna die!!

Have you ever heard of "death by fan?" No, I don't mean falling into a giant fan blade at a factory or something. Or some crazy person attaching razors to a fan... haha.

Koreans believe you can die just by sleeping in a room with a fan turned on. I thought this was a joke or one of those "my mothers friend believes this" kind of things, but nope, people my age, doctors, educated people, old people, young people.... believe this! Of course not everyone believes this, but when I asked a girl if she bought into this, she paused, then replied, "Well, I'm not sure.... maybe not... but why test it?!"

To this day there can be up to 10 reports a summer of "death by fan" on the news. Doctors even perpetuate this story! I read on some forums that this story may be just a way to cover up the extremely high suicide rate here.

The phenomenon of fan death is accepted by many Korean doctors. In summer, mainstream Korean news regularly report on cases of fan death. An example is this excerpt from the July 28, 1997, edition of The Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper:
The heat wave which has encompassed Korea for about a week, has generated various heat-related accidents and deaths. At least 10 people died from the effects of electric fans which can remove oxygen from the air and lower body temperatures...
On Friday in eastern Seoul, a 16-year-old girl died from suffocation after she fell asleep in her room with an electric fan in motion. The death toll from fan-related incidents reached 10 during the past week. Medical experts say that this type of death occurs when one is exposed to electric fan breezes for long hours in a sealed area. "Excessive exposure to such a condition lowers one's temperature and hampers blood circulation. And it eventually leads to the paralysis of heart and lungs," says a medical expert.
"To prevent such an accident, one should keep the windows open and not expose oneself directly to fan air," he advised.


I hate to admit this, as a person that sleeps with the fan turned on 9 months out of the year, and I had a twinge of "well maybe Korean buildings have different ventilation systems, or maybe their fans work differently" for a moment. Will this urban legend keep me from sleeping with a fan on when it's like a sauna here this summer? Probably not. Will I crack my window the slightest bit? Perhaps.

for more info check this link

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/medical/a/fan_death.htm