fracas

Can your own flatulence actually be deadly?

Last week’s Sunday Snopes Snippets dealt with a common myth regarding the re-use of plastic water bottles. This week, I chose to address another claim that I have seen online.

Anyone who uses email is bound to, at some point or another, receive an email containing a ‘warning’ about some terrible crime or event that they should beware of. These emails always tell the recipient to pass it along to everyone they know in order to warn others and ’save’ someone else from the same terrible fate. Most often, these emails contain some sort of claim relating the event or crime in the warning, to a specific location or police department in order to convince the recipient of its authenticity.

In mostly every case, these email warnings are hoaxes, nothing more than malicious chain letters that scare the uninformed into becoming pawns in the spamming of hundreds of thousands of people.

Snopes.com is a credible place to verify such stories you might receive. As a regular Sunday feature, fracas will highlight a different story each week to do our part in stopping or lessening the impact of the distribution of such stories.

Sunday Snopes Snippets

Sunday, February 18, 2007:

Claim: Man dies in his sleep from breathing in his own farts.

Status: False.

[Quote] A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn’t have been fatal, but the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, “He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating ‘this deadly gas.’” Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized. [End Quote]

Please click here to read the snopes.com write-up regarding this false claim.

Please bookmark fracas. Your next Sunday Snopes Snippets feature will be posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007!