STRANGE INJURIES

Bizarre injuries your body can inflict on itself. This week: screaming and lung damage.

IT’S possible to tear a lung by screaming or singing — as a fan at a One Direction concert discovered. The case was reported by Dr J. Mack Slaughter in the Journal of Emergency Medicine last year. He examined a 16-year-old girl who had been admitted to the Children’s Medical Centre in Dallas, in the U.S., with breathing problems and discovered she’d torn one of her lungs. This meant air was escaping in three places: between the lung and the chest wall, into the chest cavity and behind the pharynx (part of the throat, behind the nose and mouth). The girl was kept in overnight and X-rayed to ensure the air leak was not spreading — before being allowed home. Fortunately, the body can reabsorb the air and the tear repairs itself.