It’s a Monday and you might find yourself struggling to get back into work mode from the weekend. Sitting in your workspace you feel the urge to stretch your mouth into a satisfying yawn.

If you happen to be a tall thin man in young adulthood, STOP! That innocent little stretch might turn into something much more painful and kind of gross. Such and incident happened to a 26-year-old Chinese man last month.

■  Mr. Ou
Getting geared up for work one morning, Mr. Ou of Wuhan, Hubei Province gave a hearty stretch and a yawn. This time, however, he felt a sudden pain in his chest. He didn’t think much of it though and continued with his day.

Later on, the pain began to intensify and he started having trouble breathing. He went to the Central Hospital of Wuhan where he was diagnosed as having had a pneumothorax.

■  Pneumothoraces
A pneumothorax is a type of collapsed lung. The lungs outer surface is composed of two layers of tissue–the inner pleura and outer pleura. Between these layers is a space known as the pleural cavity. Here’s an illustration from Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV show).

If an unusually large amount of gas or air gets into this space then a pneumothorax can occur. This gas puts pressure on the lung from the outside and can cause it to collapse. Here’s a video showing a few ways it could occur.

http://youtu.be/ME7KKhf_aiI

■  What happened to Ou?
Mr. Ou wasn’t stabbed and as far as we know he didn’t suffer from any previous lung disease. There are many types of pneumothoraces which are triggered by many different ways. As the above video mentions there is also what’s known as primary spontaneous pneumothorax. The causes are not clearly known. On the bright side, this condition usually heals on its own and rarely results in serious complications.

According to ECNS, Chen Baojun who worked on Mr. Ou said young, tall, and thin men are the highest risk group for getting an attack of pneumothorax. Mr. Ou is around 180cm (5’10”) tall and  weighs 60kg (132lbs). According to Fishman’s Pulmonary Diseases and Disorders, pneumothorax affects a little under one in 10,000 men per year and about one in 100,000 women.

Don’t be another statistic. For the love of god, don’t yawn.

Source: ECNS via Daily Mail (English) via Niconico News (Japanese)
Image: Wikipedia – Gray’s Anatomy
Top Image: Wikipedia – Joseph Ducreux
Video: YouTube – Dr.islam alksassbeh