This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 1, from 2011.
There seems to be an ever-increasing list of things which have been identified as detrimental to the health of the human body: saturated fat, drinking alcohol, not drinking alcohol, not sleeping enough, sleeping too much, masturbation, Cliff Richard and smoking, to name but a few.
Interestingly though, Korean nationals can add another item to that list, specifically the humble fan. Writing in 2004 for the popular conservative Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, writer Grant Surridge noted that there were generally in Korean newspapers:
each summer from 1990 to 2004, about 10 stories related to someone dying in the presence of an electric fan.
Although I would perhaps expect greater mortality rates among enthusiastic listeners of Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine (I am assured there are such people) than among responsible users of electric fans, Korean society has seemingly genuinely assimilated the legend that, in some cases, fans can cause death.
It is alleged that specific conditions are necessary for fans to cause these deaths. Doors and windows must be sealed creating a closed, and possibly airtight, room. The demise of the victim is supposedly caused either through hypothermic effects, asphyxiation due to the creation of an airless vortex (sometimes surrounding the victim’s face), asphyxiation due to ever-depleting levels of oxygen (and/or increasing levels of carbon dioxide), or some bizarre combination of all of those.
Belief in the phenomenon is not confined to specific circles either. Fan death has been ‘endorsed’ by some high-profile and well-educated figureheads, while reports in the news and media are certainly not a rarity. So, why has fan death become such an entrenched belief? As Seo Min, a professor at Dankook University Medical School, wrote in a column on the topic, “It’s not like Korea’s air is any less oxygen rich”.
His personal theory is that in a country which already holds a belief in killer fans, making such conclusions is perhaps easier than examining the evidence for other causes of death.
I also wonder though if fan death could be used as an explanation of certain types of suicide, in order to spare the emotions or social stigma for family members and to avoid wider disclosure of a clearly sensitive issue?
