If you haven't heard of the medical scourge known as "fan death," you're not from South Korea. Or Canada, for that matter, where isolated rumblings about the dangers of running an electric fan in a closed room have apparently begun to surface as well.
As reported in the Toronto Star, an English teacher at the University of New Brunswick described a bewildering experience she had last winter after telling students she planned to bring an electric fan into the unventilated classroom to alleviate the stuffiness caused by keeping the windows closed during freezing weather.
If you do that, a Korean student warned, it will lower your body temperature, and you'll die. Some other Korean immigrants interviewed by The Star echoed the sentiment.
In South Korea, come to find out, it is widely believed -- even by some in the medical profession -- that running an electric fan in a sealed room can cause hypothermia and/or suffocation, and death. Though the very idea is dismissed by experts outside Korea, inside the country the media regularly report as many as 10 "fan-related fatalities" a year. The Korean Consumer Safety Board even lists fan death as one of the top five summer health hazards.
North Americans have their health-related old wives' tales, too -- handling a toad will give you warts, for example, or sitting to close to the TV will ruin your eyesight -- but fan death takes it to a whole new level.
Read more about it:
• Fan Death - Urban Legends
• Urban Legend: That Fan Could Be the Death of You - Toronto Star
Subscribe with Bloglines
Keep up with Urban Legends on Facebook!
Comments
It’s the same in Peru. The folks there are terrified of fans.
As an English-teacher in Japan, students told me the same thing about leaving a fan on during the night.
poor english
Yeah.. Right…
Like most people in this country (DO)I have spend half of my life under electric fans.
And all the years I went to sea and slept in a small “Steel” compartment with a fan blowing across my almost naked body I should have died a dozen deaths.
I wouldn’t dismiss this too quickly. I’m from New York, and consider myself fairly educated. I lived in Puerto Rico for 4 years, and it get’s hot in that little tropical island.
I decided to buy an oscilating fan, and point it at my bed. The following day I felt sick, and eventually wound up with broncitis. It was a dumb mistake of youth, and definitely against my hispanic mother’s advice.
I stopped using the fan for a while. When I later started using the fan again, I pointed it up toward the ceiling. No problems after that.
The issue is not necessarily the fan, but exposing your body to cool tempuratures for an extended periods does lower our body temperature. Otherwise people wouldn’t wear sweaters in air conditioned offices, use coats in colder climates, and sleep with blankets at night.
As with many urban legends and old sayings, there is a bit of truth if you dig deep enough.
Every single summer for years I have slept in a small room with a fan on full power pointed right at me. I have had no problems.
This is silly.
“I wouldn’t dismiss this too quickly. I’m from New York, and consider myself fairly educated. I lived in Puerto Rico for 4 years, and it get’s hot in that little tropical island.”
Well, I’m impressed. This may make you the leading authority on the fan death crisis.
“I decided to buy an oscilating fan, and point it at my bed. The following day I felt sick, and eventually wound up with broncitis. It was a dumb mistake of youth, and definitely against my hispanic mother’s advice.”
Case Closed! Now wait a minute. I once got broncitis and didn’t have a fan pointed at my bed. You mean that it might have been caused by something else? Hmmmmm.
“I stopped using the fan for a while. When I later started using the fan again, I pointed it up toward the ceiling. No problems after that.”
Wow! You mean that you have been in perfect health since pointing the fan at the ceiling? Not even a cold or the flu? I’m going to try that.
“The issue is not necessarily the fan, but exposing your body to cool tempuratures for an extended periods does lower our body temperature. Otherwise people wouldn’t wear sweaters in air conditioned offices, use coats in colder climates, and sleep with blankets at night.”
Unless the kids in the classroom (with the fan on) were naked, I’m not sure I get your point. Wouldn’t air conditioning be much more effective at lowering your body temperature than a fan? I’ve been exposed to that everyday for 20 years.
“As with many urban legends and old sayings, there is a bit of truth if you dig deep enough.”
A-Ha! I knew it. There are little green men running around at Roswell. We didn’t make it to the moon. And cats to suck the breath out of you.
If this was true I know a lot of that would be dead by now. I grew up in the south in the ’40′s and ’50′s and no one had air conditioning back then and everyone used fans in the hot months!
Absolutely that’s ridiculous. For one thing, fans don’t make the air any colder, they just move the air around. Air conditioning makes the air colder. So what’s the explanation for a fan causing problems?
Exposing your body to cold temperatures !!???
Just how cold does it get in Puerto Rico in the summer with a fan blowing?
Jose’s broncitis story is a common fallacy of linking cause and effect when there is none. It’s like saying “Yesterday I watched television, and today I got the flu, therefore TV causes the flu.
we sleep every night with a fan and the air on every summer…no problems yet!!!!!
I have run a fan on me all night many times.I am 75 years young!The only thing is that sometimes it does aggravate my sinus.
It gets hot in the south in summers,even in USA.
I don’t believe this is true. For one thing, I was just BORED and that’s why I decided to read this. Another thing is that I know this will never happen to me even if I am in a sealed room because I’m healthy! They mean by “sealed” that there were no cracks above and below the door and it’s frame? Well then, OH WELL! It’s just those foreigners that cross that path!
The problem with having students crowded into an enclosed classroom is that germs (especially viruses)are spread that way. It’s no accident that the flu season correlates with the back-to-school season. I suppose it’s possible that the fan blows the viruses around, spreading them a bit more widely than they would otherwise travel. But it’s more likely that the “fan” season correlates with the warmest months of the school year, which would occur just after the kids return to school and spread the flu viruses.
” . . . or sitting to close to the TV will ruin your eyesite . . .”
Not your eyesight?
And the fan thing is implausible at best . . .
Especially since I routinely sleep that way, especially in the summer.
–Webfoot Logger
I had heard of bronchitis, a disease not to be confused with broncitis, which no doubt is caused by having a fan blowing directly at you.
Having lived in S.W. FL for 40 years and having slept under a 60″ Hunter fan which is never turned off (hey, that is one tough fan), I must be quite dead and my wife also. Now I know why I smell so bad……..and have heart disease.
“Broncitis”… “eyesite”… rough crowd!