A Change of Guard

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Thursday 27 October 2011

The Happening is happening in Cambodia: mob of fainting teenagers blamed on oxygen-stealing trees


Students hospitalized (Photo: RFI)

By Cyriaque Lamar
Oct 26, 2011
www.i09.com

Craziness en masse and high schoolers have gone hand-in-hand since the Great Sarsaparilla Kerfuffle of Umpteen-Lickety-Sixty.

The latest report of teenage weirdness comes to us from Cambodia, where a fainting spell is being chalked up to breath-stealing trees with murder in their bark. Reality, you just got Shyamalanized.

Contrary to everything you've learned in basic botany, the arbors of the world are out to choke us. Reports the Phnom Penh Post:

A day after 136 students collapsed at a Kompong Cham high school while standing at attention as punishment for not showing deference to the national flag, the local police chief offered a unique explanation for the mass fainting – trees.

"According to the hospital's analysis, the reason why the students fainted is [because of] the huge tree in the school compound and the farmland surrounding the school, which absorbed the oxygen," said Heng Meng, police chief of Chamkar Leu district, adding that the punishment could not be blamed as one of the teachers "also [had difficulty breathing] and felt dizzy" [...]

A doctor from the local hospital, Iv Then, said that based on his examination, the lack of oxygen was due to an abundance of trees, which trapped the oxygen, adding that the first four or five students fainted because they were standing under the school's large medicinal oil tree.

Fortunately for school officials, authorities have no "plans to charge the school director, because the incident was caused by nature." They'd be singing a different tune if those kids had easy access to lawnmowers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am really confusing now. Any good botanist who can explain and clarify this for me please. I thought tree absorbs carbon dioxide to combine with water and releases oxygen after the photosynthesis. Khmer police and doctor seem to know somethings that I did not.

Anonymous said...

3:09 PM, You are absolutely right. The police just repeat what the doctor said and this doctor probably bought his degree from a corrupt professor.

I'm no doctor, what I know for sure that there are plenty of oxygen in the open air. Classrooms in Cambodia usually have plenty of windows, some only have roof, but no wall, so there would be plenty of oxygen for the students to breathe.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, so there would be plenty of oxygen. The fact that the students fainted could be from insect spray or chemicals in the classrooms, not lack of oxygen, unless the teachers locked the students inside the rooms and closed all the doors and windows. That is unlikely, so the doctor's hypothesis is rubbish. I don't trust this doctor to even treat my dog, let alone allowing him to treat me and my children.

Anonymous said...

9:46 PM. Thanks for your info and clarification. I hope no one start cutting down trees out of fear that they may choke people and livestock.