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Exam Suicide (Pencils Up The Nose)

Invigilator: "Settle down! No talking!...the congealing pool of blood and cerebrospinal fluid is a signal for me, not for you...."
 
..Invigilator: "Settle down! No talking!...the congealing pool of blood and cerebrospinal fluid is a signal for me, not for you...."
'However, as this is a criminology examination you may care to observe that the speed of coagulation is relative to the time and the ambient conditions of the room. Jackson, if you could kindly hold his head up a bit I will attempt to remove a pencil and we will then examine it under the microscope'...
 
I remember hearing this too, early nineties North West England. There was also a related urban legend that if someone committed suicide during an exam all other students in the same exam room got a First Class degree.
 
Seems only fair - you know, to compensate them for the inconvenience. And nightmares.
 
I remember hearing this too, early nineties North West England. There was also a related urban legend that if someone committed suicide during an exam all other students in the same exam room got a First Class degree.
The lad who told me told me when we were walking into the exam hall, that Snopes link above includes the extra bit you've mentioned about all students under that circumstance getting an automatic pass.
 
Prospective employer looking at the Qualifications of a rather dim looking prospective employee: 'Hmm, straight 'A's a with Honors. Are you SURE no one killed themselves during your finals ?
 
I think I remember hearing this at school. Southern England, mid 90s
 
When I was a school boy, I remember a friend telling me a grisly tale about a student at some other school who decided that the pressure was too much during an exam, took two pencils, put them up his/her nose and then smashed their face down onto the desk. Has anyone else heard this grim legend or did my friend just have a warped imagination?.

I heard essentially the same story (only 1 pencil if I recall correctly) in the late 1970s or possibly 1980. At the time, I was at school in Nottinghamshire, England.
 
I heard essentially the same story (only 1 pencil if I recall correctly) in the late 1970s or possibly 1980. At the time, I was at school in Nottinghamshire, England.
Cheers Mikefule, your recounting of this urban legend is the earliest dated one I've heard of so far!
 
I found this story posted in another forum in 2014. There was a link to a news story but the link is now broken.

<<Woman Stabs Eyes With Pencils In Suicide Attempt, Now She’s Suing

An unidentified woman recently decided to try to end her life in perhaps the most gruesome way – by stabbing both her eyes with pencils. After the unsuccessful suicide attempt, the woman was brought to a local hospital and treated, and a pre-surgical photo was taken and later leaked on the Internet.

The image has since gone viral, and she is suing the hospital for not only taking the photo without permission, but for the unauthorized disclosure of medical information.

The woman, who has only been identified as Jane Doe, tried to commit suicide by jamming pencils into both her eyes. The unsuccessful attempt resulted in a trip to the hospital. Once there, a member of the medical staff caring for Doe, presumed to be a nurse, snapped a quick photo of the woman in her state of disrepair.

That nurse reportedly sent the photo to a friend, which eventually made its way to a man by the name of Joshua Shivers. Needless to say, Shivers used his mother’s computer to post the photo to an online shock website where it immediately went viral. Shivers later bragged about the popularity of the pic by writing, “I finally made it in life. Please check out my shiz.”>>
 
I found this story posted in another forum in 2014. There was a link to a news story but the link is now broken. ...

OK, but ... What links this story to exam stress and / or an urban legend?
 
OK, but ... What links this story to exam stress and / or an urban legend?
The original post asked whether the pencils up the nose suicide story was "grim legend" or "warped imagination".

The pencils in the eyes attempted suicide is sufficiently similar that it shows that even if the "pencils up the nose" suicide story is apocryphal, something broadly similar has happened in real life.

A Fortean might wonder whether the "nose" legend was inspired by something similar that we have not yet traced, or whether the known "eyes" incident was perhaps inspired or influenced by the victim having heard the legend.

The fact that she was intending to sue is not directly relevant, of course, but I thought it was a sufficiently amusing follow up to leave in.
 
Further searches: I found this old thread: https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ostrils-examination-legend.14311/#post-358782

Also, two properly reported cases (not legends) of adults committing suicide by stabbing themselves in the thorax with pencils, which is not really close enough to be relevant.

Sinopes dismisses the case mentioned in the OP as a legend with no basis in fact, but does report the following case with some similarities:

<<Though we’ve yet to happen upon an instance of a despondent student ending his life in such fashion, an article in a 2000 neurological magazine described the case of a male in-patient in a psychiatric ward who was found to have shoved a 14 cm ball-point pen up through his nasal passages and lodged it between the two hemispheres of his brain. (A full length pencil was also retrieved from his nose.) The pen was removed and the patient made an uneventful recovery.>>

So, we know:
1) The suicide by pencil up the nose suicide story goes back at least to 1981 or, more likely, the late 1970s. (I can't be precise about when I heard it but I know I heard it before I left school in 1981.)

2) Other people have tried to trace a real case matching the legend and have failed.

3) It has been discussed in the Fortean Times forum before.

4) Although it appears to be no more than a gruesome legend, there have been some real cases with some similarities: a pen up the nose, and pencils in the eyeballs.
 
This UL was discussed among others on this very board some years ago, along with the rocket-powered car and the radar/microwave roadside find.
 
This UL was discussed among others on this very board some years ago, along with the rocket-powered car and the radar/microwave roadside find.
Started by One Winged Bird, Mikefule's put the link to it in his post above.
 
The two threads on this single topic are now merged into one ...
 
I heard the story about the pencils in the nose in the 90´s here in Sweden. It was told to me by a friend as a true story as I remember it.
 
I heard essentially the same story (only 1 pencil if I recall correctly) in the late 1970s or possibly 1980. At the time, I was at school in Nottinghamshire, England.
Two pencil version, same sort of time (late 70s), at school in Bristol.

We've an entire thread about school legends, this pencil one makes an appearance there, too.
 
I can't find the post but someone mentioned made up symbols being written by a pupil in an exam; a friend is a uni lecturer and on two occasions he's had students write incoherent nonsense, albeit in English, in exams. Both times, they've been passed to the head of department for enquiry in the interests of the safety the said students.
 
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