A man in China lost sensation from the waist down after playing video games continuously for some 20 hours at an internet cafe last week.
As paramedics carried the gaming fan to the hospital on a stretcher, he begged his friends to keep on playing his unfinished game for him, according to a report on Chinese media.
The man, who remains unidentified, allegedly started playing the game from the evening of January 27 until his friends called for an ambulance in the afternoon of January 28.
According to Chinese news site QQ.com, the man was trying to go to the toilet when he realised he couldn’t move the lower part of his body at an internet cafe in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province.
One of his friends, who was at the scene, was quoted saying: ‘It seems he had lost sensation completely, and couldn’t move at all. We had to call for an ambulance.’
It remains unclear what game the man had been playing.
Video game addiction has become a prominent societal issue among the young people in China, with an increasing number of young people choosing to ignore their studies, social lives and family to surf the web or play online games.
Many parents use the so-called ‘digital detox’ rehab camps as a last resort to curbing their children’s fixation on the digital world.
The Chinese video game fan is taken to the hospital on a stretcher after losing his sensation
Reports claimed that the man had played video games nonstop for nearly a day until he realised he couldn’t move his body. His friends called for an ambulance immediately
Internet addiction is considered a clinical disorder in the nation.
One of the most popular games in China is called ‘King of Glory’.
‘King of Glory’ is a hugely popular multi-player video game billed as the ‘internet heroin’ by Chinese media.
Developed by Tencent, one of China’s largest internet service providers in 2015, King of Glory is said to have attracted some 50 million people to play at the same time.
Earlier this week, Chinese media reported about a critically ill boy who had unwittingly spent his own life-saving funds on playing ‘King of Glory’.
The 10-year-old boy, nicknamed Taotao, blew 150,000 yuan (£17,000) in his mother’s account – without realising the money was all she had to save his life.
Last October, a 21-year-old woman in China became blind in one eye after playing video games on her mobile phone non-stop for a day.