Tag: viral
Teen won’t survive after trying viral ‘choking game’: mom
A heartbroken mother in Indiana is preparing for the death of her teenage son after he was gravely injured while replicating a “choking game” that he saw on social media, she said Sunday.
Joann Jackson Bogard, of Evansville, said something went “horribly wrong” when her son, Mason, tried to temporarily asphyxiate himself late Wednesday after seeing the practice of self-strangulation or assisted strangulation online.
“The challenge is based on the idea that you choke yourself to the point of almost passing out and then stop,” Bogard wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. “It’s supposed to create a type of high. Unfortunately, it has taken the lives of many young people too early and it will take our precious Mason.”
Bogard thanked doctors at Deaconess Hospital for doing everything they could to save her son, who was critically injured. The family is now preparing to donate the teen’s organs, she said.
“While we are devastated that we will never experience so many things with Mason again, we are able to find some comfort in the fact that Mason will save the lives of others,” Bogard’s post continued. “He would have wanted it this way. He was an extremely generous young man.”
Bogard also warned other parents to monitor what their children view on social media, despite concerns that they may be a bit overprotective.
“Unfortunately, we will not have the opportunity to experience so many things with our child because of a stupid challenge on social media,” Bogard wrote.
Bogard could not be reached for comment Monday. In a subsequent post late Sunday, Bogard said Mason still had fluid in his lungs.
“Please pray that he continues to improve his lung function to give his recipient the best lungs possible,” the post read. “He has already surpassed expectations and is almost there. He is still showing us how strong he is!”
A message seeking comment from Evansville police was not immediately returned.
Eighty-two children between ages 6 and 19 died after playing the so-called choking game between 1995 and 2007, according to the Evansville Courier & Press, citing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report with the agency’s most recent statistics.
Seventy-one of the victims were male and the average age was just over 13, according to the 2008 report, which noted that serious neurological injury or death can result if strangulation is prolonged.
The earliest known death due to the stunt took place in 1995, with three or fewer deaths following in each year between 1995 and 2004. A total of 22 deaths were recorded in 2005, followed by 35 fatalities in 2006, according to the CDC report.
And among the 42 deaths in which sufficient details were reported, 92 percent of the victim’s parents said they didn’t know about the choking game until their child died, the report found.
“Hug your children, tell them you love them,” Bogard’s initial post concluded. “Enjoy every moment and let the little issues go.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/05/06/teen-wont-survive-after-trying-viral-choking-game-mom/
Photo Credit: nypost.com/facebook
2-year-old almost died after popcorn infected his lung
Go ahead and splurge for the extra-large popcorn at your next family movie — but you might want to keep it away from the kids.
That’s what Nicole Johnson Goddard learned after letting her son Nash, 2, snack on the crunchy kernels during a Saturday night viewing of “Mrs. Doubtfire.” His older sisters — ages 7 and 9 — were eating it, and she couldn’t see the harm in letting him have some, too.
But as the flight attendant from Parker, Colo., wrote in a now viral post on Facebook, that decision had near-fatal consequences for her son, resulting in a four-day stay in the hospital.
“At first [Nash] choked on something,” Goddard, 39, tells The Post. “We heard him gasping for air so my husband picked him up to see if he could dislodge it.” Her husband put Nash down (and took away the snack), when the tot said he was fine.
That mid-February night, however, Nash developed “this really funky cough,” Goddard says, which turned into a 104-degree fever a few days later.
With a flu-like virus going around the house, Goddard says she took Nash to the pediatrician, even though she “had been in there with my girls on three separate occasions with them being sick.”
“I kind of felt like a hypochondriac,” she says.
It was her “mom instinct” that convinced her to bring him in anyway, and to mention the weekend’s choking incident to the doctor.
After X-rays and a visit to a pediatric pulmonologist, it was clear that Nash’s left lung was swollen and infected with pneumonia.
The culprit? Multiple microscopic pieces of popcorn that were still lodged in his respiratory tract.
“When he choked on it, he had a mouthful of popcorn that he had chewed up and he aspirated it,” Goddard says. It took two separate procedures, under general anesthesia, to “pick out the six pieces of popcorn: kernels, shells and everything else,” she says.
Now, with Nash healthy and out of the hospital, Goddard wants other parents to know the risks of letting their toddlers eat the movie-theater favorite. (As she learned, the American Academy of Pediatrics classifies popcorn, along with grapes and hot dogs, as a “high-risk food” for toddlers.)
“Honestly, I’m not a big Facebook sharer,” she says of writing up her story, which has been shared over 130,000 times, “but I thought, I might as well post it, because it’s alarming and I would have liked someone to do the same. Maybe it would have prevented this whole thing in the first place.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/03/06/my-2-year-old-almost-died-after-popcorn-infected-his-lung/
Viral Louisiana supermarket employee who let autistic customer stock shelves gets $100G for college
Article via: Viral Louisiana supermarket employee who let autistic customer stock shelves gets $100G for college
A supermarket employee in Louisiana who went viral for letting a young customer with autism help him stock the store shelves has now been gifted $100,000 for college tuition.
When Jordan Taylor, who works at Rouses Market in Baton Rouge, noticed Jack Ryan watching him refill the coolers, he offered to show him what do.
In a video taken by Jack Ryan’s dad and shared on Facebook by his sister, Delaney Edwards Alwosaibi, Jack Ryan and Taylor can be seen working together to put milk and juice on the shelves.
“Talk about a stand-up young man!!!!” Alwosaibi wrote about Taylor. “We all know autism makes going out difficult, and sometimes grocery stores can be a challenge. This young man took the time to slow down and allow Jack Ryan to help for over 30 minutes, guiding him as he finished his task.”
Alwosaibi and everyone who saw the video were so impressed by what Taylor did, they decided to start a GoFundMe page Wednesday to help raise money to send him to college. Taylor told Alwosaibi he loves math and might want to be a teacher someday.
The campaign originally had a goal of $10,000, but after receiving an overwhelming amount of donations, the goal was increased to $100,000, which it had reached as of Friday afternoon.
“He could have ignored him. He could have made an excuse and said he couldn’t allow him to help. Instead, he let him have his moment and in turn gave my family a moment we will never forget,” Alwosaibi wrote.
“It might seem like nothing to others, but as you can hear my dad say in the video, [‘I’m watching a miracle in action’].”
GoFundMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne told Fox News the fundraiser for Taylor is currently the top campaign on their site and global support has been pouring in. “Donors from Baton Rouge to Bangkok have been inspired by Jordan and Jack Ryan’s story. Nearly 3,000 people have donated $100,000 from all across the US and all around the world. Donors from Japan to Germany, from Ireland to Italy, have stepped up and taken action to show their support,” Whithorne said.