Jogger’s Collapsed Lung Due to COVID19 Face Mask
A Chinese man’s left lung has collapsed after he jogged for two and a half miles while wearing a face mask. The 26-year-old resident, known by his alias Zhang Ping, was rushed to the Wuhan Central Hospital on May 7 after he became breathless and started suffering severe chest pain.
The doctors found that Mr Zhang’s left lung was punctured and shrunk by 90 per cent. They believed the condition was caused by the high pressure in the man’s organ due to the fact that he carried out intense exercising while wearing a mask.
He initially jogged for three kilometres (1.86 miles) per day but increased the running distance to six kilometres (3.73 miles) after a week. The jogger is now in stable condition after undergoing an operation, the hospital said in a social media post on Monday.
Mr Zhang started running about two weeks ago in the hope of improving his fitness after his hometown had been under a lockdown for more than two months, according to the Wuhan Central Hospital.
He initially jogged for three kilometres (1.86 miles) per day but increased the running distance to six kilometres (3.73 miles) after a week. The resident insisted wearing a face mask during his exercise – despite occasionally feeling suffocating and uncomfortable – after seeing other joggers with face-coverings.
On Thursday evening, Mr Zhang started feeling breathless and slight chest pain just after he ran for 2.5 miles.
He carried on jogging for a bit longer before eventually giving up and walking home. Mr Zhang’s family later rushed him to the hospital after the resident felt the pain exacerbating. The doctors found Mr Zhang’s left lung, which shrunk by 90 per cent, had collapsed and even edged his heart towards the right side of his chest.
A collapsed lung is medically known as pneumothorax, which usually occurs when the lung is punctured and air escapes into the chest cavity. Occasionally, a lung will collapse without any direct injury to the lung or chest. This is called a spontaneous pneumothorax, which was what Mr Zhang experienced.
The condition would usually cause air-filled sacs, called blebs, to form. When one of these ‘sacs’ bursts, the air is released into the pleural cavity, causing the lung to collapse.
It usually occurs in people with asthma, cystic fibrosis and pneumonia, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
A spontaneous pneumothorax also can develop in people who don’t have any obvious lung disease. It’s most common in tall, thin men aged from 20 to 40 and smokers.
Dr Chen Baojun, a chief medic from the Wuhan hospital, suggested that the 26-year-old Chinese resident was already more susceptible to the condition as he was ‘a very tall man and quite thin’.
But the mishap was directly caused by the sudden increase of pressure in Mr Zhang’s lung due to intense running while wearing the face-covering, Dr Chen said.
Education authorities in China said today that they are set to ban school students from wearing face masks during PE lessons due to the health risks. A young girl is seen wearing a protective mask while playing on an exercising equipment in Shanghai on April 29
The expert warned that people should avoid wearing face masks while exercising as the face-coverings could obstruct the circulation of oxygen.
It comes as the education authorities in China said today that they are set to ban school students from wearing face masks during PE lessons due to the health risks.
Health concerns for students were raised by parents after at least three schoolboys recently died while taking their PE classes in China. Two of them were believed to have died on the school’s running track while wearing face masks.
Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk
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