‘Thought he was sleeping’: man, 29, dies at China internet café but demise goes unnoticed for 30 hours
- Cafe boss says very often waking a dozing customer leads to them becoming irritable and reprimanding staff
Workers at an internet cafe in eastern China did not realise for 30 hours that a 29-year-old man had died inside their facility, instead assuming he had fallen asleep.
The man visited the cafe in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, on June 1 for a long gaming session. A cafe worker called the police at 10pm on June 3 after the man, who was lying on a computer desk, did not respond when he was tapped on the arm, according to the mainland news portal Jimu News.
The worker also said in the report that the body had gone cold, which prompted him to call the police.
The man, whose identity was not released publicly, had previously left the cafe at 6am on June 2 to get breakfast.
“Based on the breakfast residuals left on the desk, he did not have lunch on June 2. He possibly died suddenly on the morning of June 2,” a police officer was quoted as saying.
The man’s brother-in-law, surnamed Chen, said the exact death time was not confirmed because his family did not permit pathologists to perform an autopsy.
Chen questioned why his brother-in-law’s death was not spotted earlier.
“He sat in an open area instead of a closed partition. There should have been employees checking on him and noticing his strange behaviour,” said Chen.
The internet cafe’s boss said the deceased man was a regular customer who visited the establishment almost every day and spent about six hours per visit. He looked healthy, added the boss.
He said that two employees who were working at the time did not notice the young man had “slept” for too long.
“The employees thought he was having a rest, so they did not wake him up,” the boss said. “Often, when we wake a sleeping customer, they become irritable and scold us.”
The case is still under investigation, according to the local police.
Stories of sudden deaths often make headlines in mainland China.
Last year, a 23-year-old migrant worker in eastern Jiangsu province died in his dormitory after working for at least 10 hours every day for a month.
The sudden death of a 19-year-old man shocked the nation in 2022 because he died immediately after drinking a cold drink following a basketball game.
