A Columbus, Ohio, mother has taken away her son’s Xbox after he spent four to five days locked in his bedroom playing a marathon game and collapsed from dehydration, nbc4i.com reported.
Jessie Rawlins said her son, Tyler, 15, collapsed three times before she called the paramedics (who hooked him up to IV fluids), and he was brought to a nearby hospital.
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“I was very scared,” Rawlins said. “I thought he was going to die.”
Tyler was playing the game Modern Warfare 3 and rarely left his bedroom during his marathon gaming session.
Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told nbc4i.com that dehydration can be deadly.
"When you're dehydrated, the amount of fluid in your entire body is decreased and that includes the fluid that's in your blood vessels," Patrick said. "So you have decreased blood volume. That leads to decreased blood pressure. When your blood pressure gets to a certain point, you're unable to get enough blood up to the brain. If you're not getting enough oxygen to the brain, that can cause you to pass out and it could cause you to die."
Patrick said it’s also dangerous for gamers to stay awake for long periods of time without rest – the body will eventually shut itself down and you will pass out.
Rawlins said her son learned his lesson, and he’s accepted the consequences: “The Xbox is gone,” she said.
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