Fan Death

With spring under way and it finally getting warm in Seoul, now feels like an appropriate time to warn you of a (almost) silent killer of which many probably are not even aware.

For years Koreans have been conscious of a deadly threat that no other society has discovered: fan death! The government controlled media reports on deaths by fan periodically, and an average of 10 Koreans die by the blades of electric fans per year.

So what’s the actual cause of death? People sticking their face into the blades? Nope. It happens when people fall asleep with the fan running in an enclosed room. There’s no consensus, but here are some of the theories of how the fans kill:

• The fans create a vortex that sucks the air from the room and creates a vacuum inside.
• The fan chops up the oxygen particles.
• The ELECTRIC fan uses up the oxygen and creates carbon dioxide.
• The fan sucks away all the oxygen if aimed at the face.

Consider yourself warned, and I hope you do all you can to prevent yourselves from falling prey to this menacing household appliance.

On a totally unrelated note, since boarding up Kelly’s windows, its quite stuffy in her apartment, so I took the liberty to purchase 6 fans for her that are running 24/7.