World Of Warcraft Saves Young Viking’s Life!

Who says video games can’t save your life?

Earnest Cavalli of the Wired Blog Network (via Nate Combs via Torill Mortensen via Knut Jul Meland of Nettavisen) reports:

Hans Jorgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, recently survived a moose attack by feigning death, “just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft.”

In WoW, “feign death” is a skill acquired by hunters at level 30 that allows them to take a page from the possum playbook, collapse to the ground, and convince their enemies — who lose all ingrained animosity in the process — that they’ve died.

According to Norwegian site Nettavisen , Hans and his sister apparently enraged one of the local moose (mooses? meese?) during a walk in the forest near their home. After shouting at the gigantic creature to ward it away from his sister, Olsen dropped to the ground, and presumably his lifebar plummeted to zero.…

Good thing young Hans plays a hunter! A rogue’s vanish or a mage’s blink wouldn’t have translated so neatly into real-world results. Hans may make it to level 30 Norwegian, after all.