The Isadora Syndrome

Dancer Isadora Duncan died as dramatically as she lived, when her long scarf became caught in the wheel of a moving car and strangled her. A one-in-a-million fluke? Not quite. Flowing neckwear has been in style recently, and according to an article in the A.M.A. Journal, so have freakish--and often fatal--injuries. In one of eleven cases studied, a teen-age girl suffered severe facial cuts and bruises when her scarf snagged in the wheel of her boy friend's motorcycle. An eleven-year-old boy whose scarf caught in the engine of his snowmobile was saved only by prompt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Other victims of the Isadora syndrome were even less fortunate. Five of the eleven victims died, but none as gruesomely as a young mother who wore a long scarf on a ski lift. Riding to the top of a mountain, she was yanked from her seat and hanged when her scarf caught on a descending chair.

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