Teachers and parents in Cape Elizabeth are warning middle school students about the dangers of deliberately making themselves pass out, a developing trend among youngsters in the community...
...The process of inducing the fainting, which the students do to themselves, involves deliberately hyperventilating, bending over and standing up quickly, then holding the neck to restrict blood flow to the brain. Possible injuries include falling from fainting, and brain damage from oxygen deprivation.
I went to college with a guy from Cape Elizabeth; if this is the kind of stunt Mainiacs are pulling these days, then we can all breathe easy.
And though it's a touchy subject, the local science faculty should seize this as a teaching moment. Kids could have a lot of fun with a blood-pressure cuff and pulse oximeter, in a supervised setting. And maybe learn something more about autonomic vasomotor control.