Sleeping with the gentle zephyr of afanon a hot summer night is one of life ’s greatest pleasure . Unless you support to the belief of " fan death , " that is , where this delight will leave you bushed by morning . This superstitious notion has been pass down through generation — and mostly in just Korean families , it appear .
According to folklore , the only way to endure sleeping with a buff on is to start the window or utilize a fan that has an automatic shut - off so it does n’t operate all dark . The bloodline of the killer fan news report is turbid , but does it have any kernels of truth ? First , we ’ll look at all the ways your sports fan may be judge to bump off you in yoursleep .
One urban caption claims that a fan ’s blades really chop up oxygen into carbon copy dioxide , stimulate the melody in your bedroom impossible to breathe and , therefore , calamitous [ reservoir : Snopes ] . Another says that a fan shove off on you all night can make your torso temperature drop curtain so low that it will causehypothermia , and then death . Or , a fan invariably circulate very live air wo n’t in reality cool you off ; the blistering melodic line will finally just suffocate or dehydrate you to the point of your demise . fan ca n’t do hypothermia , though . They do n’t cool the air ; they just circle it . And because no house is air tight , you ca n’t choke from hot air or a lack of oxygen .
The issue of " fan death " was such a concern that , in 2005 , the Korea Consumer Protection Board write out a warning entitled " Beware Summer Hazards ! " One of these warnings , regarding electric devotee , apprize leave behind doorway opened when using a fan while sleeping , citing possible desiccation , hypothermia and fall atomic number 8 . The warning also attribute 20 deaths from devotee in the years 2003 to 2005 [ source : Levin ] . However , nobody has been able to support these expiry [ rootage : Lee ] . Nevertheless , the belief persists even today .
How did this superstitious notion start ? Some believe it grew from a 1970s cause to conserve electricity . Or it could simply be coincidence — someone finds a dead body in a unopen room with a move fan and make a hasty conclusion . More likely , the mortal die from natural grounds , such as a centre plan of attack . In one pillow slip , a man fell asleep in front of a fan after a Nox of heavy imbibition [ archived source : Herskovitz ] .
Interestingly enough , however , the Environmental Protection Agency state of matter in its Excessive Heat Events guidebook that people should not " mastermind the flow of portable electric fans toward yourself when room temperature is hot than " 90 grade Fahrenheit ( 32 degrees Anders Celsius ) . This warning come about during the heating system waves of the 1980s and nineties when evidence suggested that buff in hold in rooms could disappear moisture from the body faster in heat index of 90 degrees Fahrenheit and higher .
So could that Korean grandmother be on to something , after all ?
