Aihps3.210 net.games utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wheps!eagle!mhtsa!ihnss!ihps3!pcl Thu Apr 29 10:35:15 1982 Video game caused death? >From the Chicago Tribune, 27-Apr-82: Heart blamed in death of video game patron, 18 By Steve Kerch An 18-year-old South Holland youth died of a heart attack while playing a video game in Calumet City, the Lake County, Ind., coroner ruled Monday. Deputy Lake County Coroner Mark Allen said the possibility that Peter Bukowski died earlier this month as a direct result of stress caused by the game was investigated, "but we don't want to say yes or no whether the video game represents enough exertion to have brought on the attack." Dr. Robert Eliot, of the University of Nebraska, release a study this month saying video games can be hazardous to people who may be susceptible to heart disease. Allen is going to forward the autopsy results to Eliot for comparison with Eliot's test results. The official cause of Bukowski's death is a heart attack "brought on by a myocardial inflammation. He collapsed April 3 at the Friar Tuck game room in River Oaks Shopping Center and was pronounced dead at St. Margaret's Hospital, Hammond." Allen said the inflammation, a scarring of the heart tissue, was something Bukowski would have had prior to playing the game. Coroner's office investigators inspected the "Berserk" game that Bukowski had been playing, but found no electronic defects. Bukowski had no history of heart trouble, and Allen compared the case to others in which high school athletes had died for similar reasons. Allen said the heart attack could have been caused by any type of exertion, like "hiking up a flight of stairs or running from first to second base". ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.