South Carolina boy, 11, dies playing 'choking game'

Doctors and safety advocates are warning parents and children about the so-called “choking game” after an 11-year-old boy died in South Carolina.

 

According to Time, which cites Jennifer Collins -- a spokeswoman for the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office -- Garrett Pope Jr. died from accidental asphyxiation last week after choking himself over what the coroner’s office believes was an increasingly popular game.

 

Children who participate choke themselves in an attempt to cut off the blood flow to their brain – the result is supposed to be brief lightheadedness or euphoria when they let themselves breathe again.

 

The boy reportedly used a cloth belt from his school uniform.

 

Time reports that the “choking game,” which may be known by different names, has been around for at least two decades and kills anywhere between 250 and 1,000 young people every year.

 

“He took this terrible ‘game’ too far,” the boy’s father, Garrett Pope Sr., said in a Facebook post that has been shared more than 1,500 times. “My family has never felt pain like this before, and we don’t [want] anyone else to go through what we are going through.”