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The 59-year-old victim, only known by his surname Min, was found dead with the fan fixed directly at him. A typical example is this excerpt from the July 4, 2011, edition of The Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper:Ī man reportedly died on Monday morning after sleeping with an electric fan running. However, this is true of any room without ventilation, and a running fan will not greatly improve or worsen the problem.ĭuring the summer, mainstream South Korean news sources regularly report alleged cases of fan death. In the process of human respiration, inhaled fresh air is exhaled with a lower concentration of oxygen gas (O 2) and higher concentration of carbon dioxide gas (CO 2), causing a gradual reduction of O 2 and buildup of CO 2 in a completely unventilated room. It is alleged that fans may cause asphyxiation by oxygen displacement and carbon dioxide intoxication. Investigative autopsies of fan death victims showed that those suffering from issues like heart problems or alcoholism may have had their condition exacerbated by the temperature drop and thus could succumb to that illness more easily. Most at risk would be someone in frail health over an extended period of time. As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature, and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. Hypothermia is abnormally low body temperature caused by inadequate thermoregulation. The EPA does, however, approve of using a fan if a window is open and it is cooler outside, or in a closed room when the heat index is lower.
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But in extreme heat and high humidity, sweat evaporation becomes ineffective, so the heat stress placed on the body increases, potentially speeding the onset of heat exhaustion and other detrimental conditions: The American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discourages people from using fans in closed rooms without ventilation when the heat index (a combination of temperature and humidity) is above 32° C (89.6° F). Proposed causes Hyperthermia (heat stress) Īir movement will increase sweat evaporation, which cools the body. One conspiracy theory is that the South Korean government created or perpetuated the myth as propaganda to curb the energy consumption of South Korean households during the 1970s energy crisis, but Slate reports that the myth is much older than that – probably as far back as the introduction of electric fans in Korea, and cites a 1927 article about "Strange Harm from Electric Fans". Where the idea came from is unclear, but fears about electric fans date back to their introduction to Korea, with stories dating to the 1920s and 1930s warning of the risks of nausea, asphyxiation, and facial paralysis from the new technology.