Santa Sydrome

I refuse to acknowledge this as the last day of Creepmas.  Among other things I haven't made my Yeti cookies, or finished my needle felted Yeti.  So I'm going to call this Creepmas Day 12 1/4.

This past year I read the book The Woman Who Swallowed Her Cat: And Other Gruesome Medical Tales by Rob Myers.

Overall I didn't care for the book. The stories are supposedly based on cases from medical journals but they are written in a way that makes them sound like a Goosebumps short. There was something smug about the way the author wrote about these tragedies that rubbed me the wrong way and I have a pretty dark sense of humor.

But one story peaked my Creepmas interest. In The Santa Syndrome a robbery goes wrong and this guy gets stuck in the chimney.

"In the intensive care unit, Spencer lay on a stretcher. The main muscle groups of his body were now gangrenous and infected. His limbs were swollen to three times their normal size causing further pressure within his damaged tissues, a condition known as compartment syndrome.

Five days later, the doctors had no choice but to amputate Spencer’s arms and legs. Overwhelmed and poisoned by the myoglobin released from his dead muscles, his kidneys failed. Just one week after he was saved, Spencer suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

Spencer fell victim to the little known Santa Claus Syndrome where a person becomes accidentally trapped in a chimney, air duct or heating vent, and suffers, as a result, positional asphyxia, compartment syndrome, and often, burn injuries. Within eight hours of being trapped, muscle death begins. Almost all cases involve ill-fated attempts at burglary."

Aside from Rob Myers and the person that wrote this article about two women, I couldn't find any usage of the term Santa Syndrome in reference to people getting stuck in chimneys. A lot of Santa jabs at people who get stuck in chimneys yes, but actual syndrome references no.

But it still got me thinking. There's no shortage of stories about people getting stuck in chimneys, but they generally gloss over the details. When I hear of someone getting trapped anywhere, I immediately think of claustrophobia, dehydration and starvation. What I don't think of is muscle tissue slowly dying as blood flow is restricted by the physical pressure of being stuck. I think of suffocating in a confined space in terms of depleting the amount of oxygen available in the air, not the physical inability to draw sufficient amounts into the body. At least not in a space large enough for you to crawl into. It's not like a building collapsing or an automobile crushing you.

And now that I have thought about it, it makes completely, horrifying, logical sense. While I didn't find anything exactly like Spencer's incident, I did find enough information to make the already terrifying notion of being trapped in a chimney even more nightmarish.

I'd like to take a moment to be thankful that back when I volunteered to go caving with a bunch of middle schoolers, none of this information was in my head.

This death by compression asphyxia didn't occur in a chimney, but I imagine the confined space involved was similar.

This is the webmd list of all the different ways you can die from asphyxia.

More information on compartment syndrome and gangrene.

WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES: Here is a case of gangrene caused by compartment syndrome.

This is a long, but very informative read about children chimney sweeps and the awful conditions they faced.  Worse than any Creepmas horror story, the holidays only served to exacerbate the already gruesome conditions these kids were forced to live in.

In my merry search for Santa Syndrome, I found the term is mostly used by conservative Christians. I didn't even know there was a Conservapedia which has branded itself "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". It's interesting to say the least, and this what they have to say about Santa Syndrome.

I personally think it's funny that what they've diagnosed as a psychological syndrome, I would consider the development of critical thinking.

I also found one reference to Sick Santa Syndrome which doesn't have anything to do with dirty old men who like enticing children to sit on the their laps. It refers to job related conditions that might effect seasonal Santas. I think it brings up a valid point, but I don't think that's an actually recognized syndrome either.

I mean we're all familiar with the running joke about mall Santas getting peed on, but when you think about it there are lots of occupational hazards. Bell ringers being exposed to the elements, frostbite and all that standing on cold concrete, is bad on the joints. Not that mall Santas have it cushy, sitting for long periods isn't any good either and having those kids clamber up and down, with their sharp knees and elbows. Sitting on you with those bony little butts. If you've ever had a toddler climb on your lap then you know they are squirmy little meat sacks full of sharp edges. And to make it worse they are coated in cooties. Just covered from head to toe in cooties.

Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be Santa, even if you don't find yourself dying a slow hideous death stuck in a chimney.