CORRECTION: The video and article originally posted by Those Guys TV regarding the cause of Roxanne Myers condition was a hoax (the links and the video are no longer available). According to a YouTube video and a Flickr account under her name, Myers did in fact have her portions of both feet amputated due to deep vein thrombosis.
Previously
For her college art thesis, Roxanne Myers decided to explore the dangers of videogame addiction by diving into the subject head first with a weeklong gaming marathon over spring break.
In one sense, Myers' research was a success: she learned firsthand what can happen when people remain immobile for long periods of time. But on a personal level, the thesis experiment was a disaster for Myers, whose feet had to be partially amputated as a result of circulation loss during the marathon, Those Guys TV reports.
WARNING: LINKS TO "THOSE GUYS TV" LEAD TO GRAPHIC IMAGES
In an interview with Those Guys TV, Myers explained that the project took a turn for the worse about two days after she started gaming.
"Over Spring Break my project was to sit in my room all day and play videogames. Things got bad about two-and-a-half days in and I ended up falling asleep, sitting cross-legged at my desk," Myers said in the interview. "I ended up cutting off circulation to my feet because of this."
Myers knew something was wrong as soon as she woke up and felt numbness in her feet, leaving her unable to walk. At the emergency room, doctors said she had an undiagnosed circulation condition that made her susceptible to blood clots.
"I ended up with blood clots all over my body, but they were mainly in my feet," Myers continued, saying she was in shock when doctors said they would have to amputate parts of each of her feet. "The pain [of the amputation] was excruciating. I got so depressed and I just wanted to kill myself."
Luckily Myers is now on the mend from her injuries, which can be seen in more detail in a series of photographs posted on Those Guys TV.
But as Gamma Squad points out, the interview leaves many questions unanswered, especially about Myers herself, who can be seen laughing in the video while discussing her injuries, leading some to speculate that the video may not be entirely genuine.
Horribly uncomfortable interview aside, Guyism's Matt Hawkins noted that it's important to put Myer's videogame injuries in perspective and remember that she had a medical condition.
"You know, it’s a sad tale, but for her to blame video games is just ridiculous," Hawkins wrote. "She was the victim of an undiagnosed condition, which could have surfaced in a variety of ways, like watching a movie or any activity in which she was inactive."
Do you think the video is fake or real?