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Dance Dance Revolution Hastens Heart Attack

Thanks to TheOmahaChannel.com for its story discussing a 15-year old girl whose heart stopped while playing arcade Dance Dance Revolution. According to the piece: "[Kimber] Wilson was playing the game Dance Dance Revolution at a Bellevue arcade with a friend June 22 when she fell to the floor. The arcade owners gave her CPR, then a police officer took over. Paramedics shocked her several times with a defibrillator at the arcade to get her heart working again." The diagnosis was "hypertrophy cardiomyopathy", a genetic problem (which could have been triggered by any exercise) in which "the walls around her heart are so thick that her heart wasn't getting the signals to beat." Fortunately, Kimber was "soon... back to hanging out with her friends at the arcade", albeit with a pacemaker, commenting: "I might try Dance Dance Revolution, but I'm thinking no."

3 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Complete crap by ubrkl · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was "a genetic problem" ... any excercise would have triggered this. Nothing to do with DDR.

  2. Re:GROSSLY misleading by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 4, Informative
    The doctor in question is the Brazilian surgeon Dr. Randas J.V. Batista, and the procedure is slightly more refined than "lobbing off half the heart and stiching the rest back up". :-)

    Here is a reference.

  3. Re:Take the right perspective by philbert26 · · Score: 3, Informative
    She's 15 years old, and the first time she's been active enough to have her birth defect cause problems is while playing DDR.

    No wonder we're a nation of fatasses.

    This should not be modded insightful (maybe funny). Hypertrophy cardiomyopathy does not generally cause heart attacks the first time you exercise.