An eating contest at a local university ended in tragedy on Wednesday when a graduate student died after participating in a steamed bun eating competition.
Huang Te-hsiang (黃德祥), dean of the student affairs office of Dayeh University in Changhua, said yesterday that a 23-year-old student, surnamed Chen, from the Graduate Institute of Bioindustry Technology could not stop vomiting and fell unconscious after he began to feel uncomfortable during the school’s eating competition on Wednesday.
School medical personnel immediately performed CPR on the student and an ambulance was called which rushed him to a nearby hospital, but the student was pronounced dead after emergency staff at the hospital had preformed 90 minutes of resuscitation, Huang said.
The cause of death remains unclear, but doctors said that the student may have choked to death.
The school promised to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation into the case, Huang said.
Instructor Chan Ching-lin (詹慶臨) of the university said that the school held an eating contest each year.
Chen and several other contestants were competing in an event to see who could finish two steamed buns stuffed with egg and cheese in the fastest time, Chan said.
This year’s event featured 60 students split into 30 teams of two, with the winning team receiving NT$2,000 in prize money.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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