A One Direction Fan's Lung Collapsed After 'Forceful Screaming' During A Concert

— here's the wild story


The INSIDER Summary:

• A 16-year-old girl suffered a collapsed lung after screaming at a One Direction concert three years ago.
• Doctors described her case in a new report published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
• It's an extremely rare occurrence.

Fans of the boy band One Direction fans have gone to intense (sometimes frightening) lengths to express their devotion. A person reportedly paid $13,000 to own a pizza crust discarded by a member of the group, which one girl once hid out in a trash can behind the band's hotel, hoping to sneak in.

But one teen might take the cake when it comes to 1D fanaticism: The BBC reports that, three years ago, a 16-year-old fan screamed so hard at a One Direction concert that her lung collapsed. This month, the doctors who treated the teen published a paper about the incident in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.

The teen came to the emergency room at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, complaining of shortness of breath. She said that her symptoms had begun after "forceful screaming" at a One Direction concert the previous night.

"Instead of breathing a normal 12 to 16 times a minute, she was breathing 22 times a minute," Dr. J Mack Slaughter, who treated the teen, told the BBC. "So we knew something was a little off by that."



One Direction member Harry Styles takes photos with fans in 2014.



After a thorough exam and testing, they found that the girl had a collapsed lung, and that air from the lung had leaked into her chest cavity and behind her throat.

Slaughter told the BBC he could find only two other case reports describing similar injuries caused by screaming or singing. One involved a drill sergeant; the other involved an opera singer. The 16-year-old also had no preexisting lung problems that might have caused the lung collapse, the report said.

The good news is that the teen presumably recovered just fine: After an overnight stay in the hospital she was sent home. The doctors determined that the lung would be able to heal itself and the body could reabsorb the leaked air, and the report said that the teen never returned for further visits.

These days, One Direction is on hiatus as its members pursue solo careers. But this is impassioned teen's story is a reminder that — in the band's heyday — the fandom wasn't joking around.

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