Chinese Gamer Paralyzed After Playing Video Games For 20 Hours Straight

Video game addiction cannot only lead to obesity and general unhappiness with life, but also paralysis.

According to the Daily Mail, a gamer in China “lost sensation from the waist down after playing video games continuously for some 20 hours at an internet cafe last week.” The man was rushed to the hospital by paramedics after he reportedly begged his friends to keep playing his unfinished game in his place.

It remains unclear as to what game he had been playing for so long. His session began on the evening of January 27 and continued into the afternoon of January 28 until his friends called for an ambulance.

The Chinese news site QQ.com reports that the paralysis occurred when he attempted to go to the bathroom and realized he could not move the lower part of his body.

One the man’s friends said of the incident, “It seems he had lost sensation completely, and couldn’t move at all. We had to call for an ambulance.”

As noted by the Daily Mail, video game addiction continues to plague Chinese youth as “an increasing number of young people [are] choosing to ignore their studies, social lives and family to surf the web or play online games.”

To combat this addiction, many parents have taken to sending their kids to a “digital detox” rehab camp. The nation has also cited video game addiction as a clinical disorder.

Just last year, a 21-year-old woman in China became blind in one eye after playing on her mobile phone a full 24 hours.