We love sports. Here at SB Nation we live and breathe the world’s many shades of wonderful games, but there’s a good chance we’ll never love sports to the extent of a few fans in China, who were willing to die for the World Cup -- literally.
World cup binge watching is killing Chinese soccer fans
If you plan to watch the World Cup, please remember to sleep also. We’ve grown attached to you all.
Christopher Lee
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Wednesday morning brings a series of tremendously sad stories from the world’s most populous country. The first from Suzhou, where a 25-year-old man died from sleep deprivation after staying awake to watch the World Cup game between Spain and the Netherlands.
Suzhou, which is located near Shanghai, is 11 hours behind the majority of Brazil, meaning games were starting at midnight and continuing until around 8 a.m. during the opening matches. This isn’t the first time a person in China had died during the World Cup. A similar story was reported in 2012, when another Chinese fan died of sleep deprivation.
The man was quickly joined by two more Chinese fans, both of whom died during the opening weekend of the cup -- also due to lack of sleep. It’s beginning to take a toll on local health care facilities, according to The Telegraph.
Shanghai’s hospitals have seen a spike in emergency cases since the competition began including many fans “feeling the effects of staying up late,” the Shanghai Daily reported.
Forty per cent of those being admitted were suffering from breathing or stomach problems, often caused by “irregular eating and sleeping patterns”, one A&E doctor told the newspaper.
We know the World Cup is fun, but stay safe out there folks.
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