A California woman is suing a beauty salon because she said getting her hair washed there nearly killed her.
Elizabeth Smith, 48, got her hair done at a San Diego salon in January 2014, and almost two weeks after the visit, doctors told Smith she suffered a stroke, BuzzFeed reports.
The doctors said a CT scan revealed that an artery in Smith’s neck had been damaged by leaning back in the beauty parlor’s shampoo chair and sink.
But is a salon-induced stroke medically plausible?
It turns out the answer is yes, though it is extremely rare. The condition even has a nickname: Beauty Parlor Stroke Syndrome. Doctors say it can happen when necks are hyper-extended.
“When a patient is leaning their head back, you could possibly tear or irritate these posterior circulation or have these kind of strokes, ” neurologist Dr. Clifford Segil told CBS Philly.
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