A 31-year-old German gamer has broken his neck while wearing a virtual reality headset after moving his head too “intensely.” X-rays showed he fractured his C7 neck vertebra at the base of his neck; researchers say the man’s injury looked like injuries in runners and soldiers.
The virtual reality headsets are super popular among gamers, with millions of them sold in the US in recent years.
My brother has a set and I played like 3 games on it and almost puked!
Dr. David Baur, an orthopedics and trauma specialist at the hospital where the man was treated, said the injury resembled “clay shoveler’s fracture.” According to the Post.
This fracture is named after injuries recorded in clay miners in Australia in the 1940s.
Experts from the University of Leipzig Hospital, where he was treated, think it’s the first documented VR-related stress fracture in the world. The man had to wear a neck brace for six weeks, but he made a full recovery after 12 weeks.
Source: New York Post