Berzerk Video Game of Death
The urban legend surrounding the arcade game, Berzerk suggests that playing the game can have deadly consequences. The legend is based on the deaths of two young men, Peter Bukowski and Jeff Dailey, who both died after playing the game. However, the article argues that these deaths were not caused by the game but rather by pre-existing medical conditions.
In the 1980s, Berzerk was considered a suspicious video game and blamed for societal problems. The game itself was inherently dangerous for anyone who played it.
Peter Bukowski, an 18-year-old from South Holland, Illinois, died on Saturday, April 3, 1982, after playing Berzerk at Friar Tuck’s Game Room in Calumet City, IL. He had complained of shortness of breath and thirst before arriving at the arcade and collapsed after playing two games. An autopsy revealed that Bukowski had an undiagnosed heart condition called Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC).
The details surrounding Jeff Dailey’s death are less clear and have been distorted over time. It was reported that he died of a heart attack after playing Berzerk for hours and achieving a score of 16,660, which contained the “number of the beast.” However, official records show that Dailey died in a car crash on May 29, 1981, and was not near an arcade at the time of his death.
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