Smartphones have become and integral part of our daily lives. These devices can be extremely helpful in connecting with friends and family, accessing news and entertainment websites, browsing social media and getting work done as they are essentially portable mini-computers. With this being said, smartphone addiction is a real problem and it affects thousands of people across the globe.
A Chinese woman from Hong Kong fell victim to this extreme fixation on her smart phone and suffered terribly. The 47-year-old migrant worker developed several blood clots on her brain because she spent an astonishing 20 hours straight on her phone. She was on a train journeying from her hometown in Henan province to Guangzhou, which is located in the south of China, according to local media reports.
A woman journeying from Henan to Guangzhou was on her phone for 20 hours
Kankan news reported that she was travelling back at the end of the Lunar New Year and like a majority of people, she whipped out her phone as soon as she boarded the train in order to kill time and keep herself occupied during the trip. The train was extremely full and this meant that there was a difficulty in moving freely therefore, the woman generally maintained the same posture for the length of the journey.
She lay on her right-hand side looking at her phone screen for most of the ride. When she reached her destination and got off the train, she fainted and fell to the ground. She was rushed to the hospital where they did a CAT scan. The results from the scan showed that the woman had several life-threatening blood clots in her brain.
The train was cramped and so the woman maintained the same posture for the length of the trip
They prepped her for surgery and doctors commenced a three-hour long operation in order to remove the clots as soon as they could in order to prevent further damage to the arteries in her brain.
Meng Heng, who is a neurologist at the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University in Guangzhou told local media “We took out many blood clots, almost two centimeters in total, which is twice what patients usually have.”
He continued saying “We think she kept the same posture for too long, which compressed the blood vessels on the right side of her neck.”
The woman is recovering and can be seen on her phone in the hospital
The woman was in good health before the incident occurred and she was not suffering from any cardiovascular diseases or ailments before being brought in to the hospital. There has been a sharp increase in the number of young patients suffering from blood clots due to their extended hours of being in the same position while on their smartphones.
The woman is now recovering steadily in the hospital. Doctors advise smartphone users to take long screen breaks and adopt a comfortable posture while scrolling through their devices.
