In South Korean superstition, an electric fan is sometimes associated with mysterious deaths while running in a closed room.
The belief is known as fan death. It holds that a running electric fan can cause suffocation, hypothermia, or another fatal condition when used overnight in a sealed room. The claim became especially visible in South Korean media and public discussion during the late twentieth century.
Medical and scientific explanations do not support the superstition. A household fan moves air but does not remove oxygen from a room or create a known lethal mechanism under ordinary conditions. Deaths attributed to fans are more plausibly explained by underlying illness, heat, alcohol, carbon-monoxide exposure, or other hazards that were not recognized at the time.
The myth should not obscure genuine safety advice: fans must be kept away from water, damaged wiring, and unstable surfaces. Carbon-monoxide detectors and ventilation are important where fuel-burning appliances are used.