An Ohio mother is grieving the loss of her 12-year-old son who died after participating in the viral TikTok “blackout challenge.” Blavity previously reported on the challenge in which participants try to make themselves pass out by holding their breath or choking themselves. This result is them cutting off their air supply.
According to Cleveland.com, Tristan Casson’s mother, Taylor Davis, called Richmond Heights police sometime before 9:30 p.m. She said that her other sons found their non-responsive brother in his bedroom and then FaceTimed her. Davis said she was not far from home.
“They called me and said, ‘Mom, Tristan is dead,’ and I just started to panic,” she told Cleveland.com. “He’s like ‘Tristan is dead, Tristan is dead,’ and I’m like what are talking about, and so he turned the camera around, I could see Tristan’s face.”
Paramedics were called and rushed Casson to Hillcrest Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The police chief of Richmond Heights, Thomas Wetzel, and Mayor Kim Thomas, expressed their condolences to the family. Wetzel stated an official investigation into the young boy’s death is underway. However, The News-Herald reports that the cause of death is suspected to be death by suicide due to asphyxiation.
Casson’s mother does not agree with the idea of suicide, Cleveland 19 reports. Davis insists that her son’s death was a result of asphyxiation and that he wasn’t suicidal. She said that he was unfortunately just following an online trend.
She said Tristan always followed new dances and trends popular on TikTok.
“He couldn’t wait for Christmas and the basketball season to start,” Davis told Cleveland.com. “We always talked about goals, and he was excited for the future. He loved his family and his friends. He and his siblings are like peanut butter and jelly.”
Davis went on to state how bright her son was.
She mentioned how “proud” he was when he became the first person Richmond Middle School licensed to fly a drone.
Driven by losing her son, Davis said she wants to push the issue of parents monitoring their children’s social media. She said she routinely checked her son’s phone but when she checked this last time, his search history was clear.
“TikTok needs to control what it shows on its platform,” she said. “I have parental controls on everything, but these videos can pop out and be seen by children like my son no matter what.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report in 2008 stating that 82 young people died that year from playing what was called “the choking game.”
People would attempt to reach a euphoric state by intentionally choking themselves or another person.
According to Bloomberg, a recent report shows the “choking game” has returned as the “blackout challenge.”
Its resurgence has been linked to the deaths of at least “15 children ages 12 or younger in the past 18 months,” Cleveland.com reports.
A family friend, Tanisha Watson, created a GoFundMe page to help cover funeral expenses for the little boy she considered “loving.”
“I just wish that TikTok would ban these types of challenges from going around,” she said, according to Cleveland.com. “It is killing our babies.”
Along with the challenge being stopped, Casson’s mother said she wants people to remember her child as an intelligent, helpful, happy and loving person. She said he loved dancing, his friends and his family.
“My baby had plans,” she said. “If I could say anything to him right now, it would be, ‘I love you.’”
