There is a dark side to video games that only gets talked about when the worst happens. And that is that there have been deaths caused by video games. There have ones where people have killed one another over video games. Or the games “cause them” to go out and kill others. But today, one young man’s love of playing Xbox has cost him his life.
According to the Daily Mail, the young man was named Chris Staniforth, and he really loved playing video games on his Xbox One according to his father. So much so that he could apparently the game for 12 hours plus on end. Unfortunately, after a long time of doing this, he suffered a blockage to his lungs when he developed deep vein thrombosis. This condition is commonly associated with passengers on long haul flights where they are relatively immobile for hours on end. Since he would (according to his father) plop down on a chair and play the games for hours on end without breaks, this is not hard to believe.
This cause of death was confirmed by a coroner, thus proving it was the gaming sessions that took his life. According to Saniforth’s father and a friend who was near him when he died, he did have warning signs about the blood clot that eventually killed him, but wasn’t sure what to do as it just felt like a chest pain.
Naturally, his father is in grief over the loss of his son, but, he also wants to make sure no one else suffers his son’s fate. He implores parents to monitor how long their kids play video games. Also, he wants to raise awareness about how a blood clot can form simply by being immobile during gaming sessions.
Now yes, this is a 1 in a million case, but it happened, and it happened under very “normal” circumstances. So, if you play video games, and you like binging them? Do yourself a favor, take a break every hour or so and walk around, it might just save your life in the long run.