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So many people have fainted in front of President Barack Obama that he's an expert by now. He was unfazed by the latest fainting during his speech on energy policies: "You got to get something to eat, you've got to get some juice."
The collapse at Maryland's Prince George County Community College was the second fainting spell at an Obama event in just over a week. A woman in the crowd fainted at his March 5 speech at the Daimler Motors truck plant in North Carolina. "Folks do that all the time when I speak," he said, which is true. He also gave similar advice as he did today: "You always have to eat before you stand for a long time. That's a little tip."
In the past, he's also recommended getting some space, drinking some water, and again, keeping the blood suger up. A Wall Street Journal item in 2008 pointed out five different fainting spells at Obama rallies. The Hill in 2010 attributed all that fainting to something called parade ground syncope, which happens when people stand in one place for too long in the heat. "If the leg muscles are not used, blood is not pumped back to the heart. As a result, blood pools in the leg veins, and blood pressure falls," drug maker Merck explains.
But it's too tempting not to try to attribute the fainting to some kind of something beyond medical science. Perhaps there's a fainting index the pollsters have neglected to examine? Someone fainted at a Rick Santorum event last week, after the candidate's strong Super Tuesday showing. So far, though, we haven't found any accounts of someone fainting at a Mitt Romney rally.
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Adam Martin
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