How a Fan Can Kill You

Summary

The video examines the South Korean belief that sleeping with an electric fan running—especially in a closed room or with the fan aimed at the face—can cause suffocation, oxygen loss, hypothermia, paralysis, or death.

History of the belief

• The belief predates the 1970s energy crisis. A Korean newspaper article from 1927 warned that electric fans could cause nausea, facial paralysis, and asphyxiation. It claimed the blades created a vacuum that prevented oxygen from reaching the lungs. A 1932 article also described a woman who feared sleeping with a fan on.
• Newspapers helped keep the story alive. Korean newspapers reported deaths in which a running fan was noted as a possible factor. A 1973 report described a man found dead after sleeping with two fans in a closed room, while also mentioning an unexplained can of chemicals. A 2004 newspaper investigation found roughly ten fan-related death stories per summer from 1990 to 2004.
• The government may have reinforced the myth, but its origin is uncertain. The claim that authorities invented fan death during the 1970s energy crisis is difficult to establish because newspaper accounts of the belief existed decades earlier. The Korean Consumer Agency later issued safety recommendations that repeated some claims about fan use, potentially reinforcing the association.

What fans do—and don’t do

• A normal electric fan moves existing air. It does not remove oxygen, create a dangerous vacuum, produce carbon dioxide, or break down oxygen molecules.
• A fan can make people feel cooler by increasing heat loss from the skin through evaporation of sweat and convection. It also circulates air and can provide steady background noise.
• A fan does not, by itself, cause fatal hypothermia or facial paralysis.

Other possible causes of death

A death occurring while a fan is on does not show that the fan caused it. Other possible causes include cardiovascular disease, stroke, poisoning, alcohol or drug intoxication, respiratory illness, heatstroke, or carbon monoxide exposure. Carbon monoxide can be dangerous when produced by combustion sources in an enclosed space, but a fan does not generate it.

Evidence and approach

The video traces the belief through historical newspaper reports, compares those reports with later safety warnings, and explains the fan’s basic physical effects to assess the alleged mechanisms.

Researchers and sources featured

• Harvard Health — cited for information about fans and their effects.
• Korean Consumer Agency — its 2006 recommendations on sleeping with fans or air conditioners are discussed.
• Korean newspapers — an unnamed newspaper’s 1927 article, a 1932 article, a 1973 death report, and a daily newspaper’s 2004 investigation are referenced.

No individual researchers are named in the subtitles.