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13-Year-Old Boy Dead After TikTok ‘Benadryl Challenge,’
Grieving Dad Warns Other Parents

April 17, 2023








TikTok has fallen under criticism for allowing dangerous “challenges” to be posted
and go viral on the platform. The extensive list of dangerous challenges has reportedly
contributed to dozens of deaths and individuals suffering severe medical emergencies
in the last two years.

The most recent so-called “Benadryl Challenge” has led to the
death of 13-year-old Jacob Stevens.


A partial list of TikTok Darwin-Award-type challenges includes:






Thirteen-year-old Jacob Stevens participation in the TikTok Benadryl Challenge cost
him his life. The challenge involves taking 12 to 14 of the antihistamines, six times
the recommended dosage. Reportedly, the high dosage induces hallucinations.

Jacob’s father Justin told ABC 6 that his son was with friends when he overdosed.
Video taken by his friends shows the Ohio teen swallowing the pills and
soon after having seizures.

“It was too much for his body,” the devastated father said.

Family members rushed Jacob to a hospital where he was put on a ventilator.
However, Jacob died six days later.

The despondent father referred to the day his son died as the “worst day of his life.”

Justin noted that medical staff told him early on there was no brain activity and that they
“could keep him on the vent, that he could lay there — but he [would] never open his
eyes … breathe, smile, walk or talk.”

Justin recalled that his son was a good boy: “It didn’t matter how bad of a day I was having,
[when] no one could make me smile, Jacob could make me smile,” he said.

A teary Dianna Stevens, Jacob’s grandmother, told a local news outlet: “I’m going to do
anything I can to make sure another child doesn’t go through it.”

Justin agreed and said that parents should “Keep an eye on what [your kids are] doing. …
Talk to them about [our] situation. I want everyone to know about my son.”

Justin is now urging lawmakers to put age restrictions on over-the-counter pharmaceuticals
like Benadryl — a campaign he describes as his “life goal.” He also wants social media platforms
like TikTok to impose safeguards.

The New York Post noted that Jacob is not the first victim of the Benadryl Challenge.
In August 2020, a 15-year-old girl died during a similar incident.







Following reports of drug misuse, manufacturer Johnson & Johnson issued a public advisory warning:
“The Benadryl TikTok trend is extremely concerning, dangerous and should be stopped immediately.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also released a public service warning: “Taking higher than
recommended doses of the common over-the-counter (OTC) allergy medicine diphenhydramine
(Benadryl) can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma or even death.”

The warning continued: “We are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms
or dying after participating in the ‘Benadryl Challenge’ encouraged in videos posted on the
social media application TikTok. Health care professionals should be aware that the ‘Benadryl Challenge’
is occurring among teens and alert their caregivers about it.”


Cormac Keenan, TikTok’s Director of Trust and Safety, said in a statement:

Quote:“We believe digital experiences should bring joy
and play a positive role in how people express
themselves, discover ideas, and connect. We’re
improving our screen time tool with more custom
options, introducing new default settings for teen
accounts, and expanding Family Pairing with
more parental controls.”

TikTok recently announced a new 60-minute time restriction for users under 18 years of age.
A passcode will be required to extend viewing time, and parental or guardian permission will
be required to extend viewing time for those younger than 13-years-old.

Teen Left Severely Disfigured After
TikTok Challenge Gone Wrong








A North Carolina teenager was taken to the intensive care unit after his attempt to emulate a
viral TikTok trend took a disastrous turn.

Mason Dark, a 16-year-old resident of the idyllic college town of Wake Forest, North Carolina,
was trying to film his take on a viral TikTok challenge in which participants use cans of spray paint
as makeshift flamethrowers.

However, Dark’s effort blew up in his face when, instead of projecting outward to achieve the
desired flamethrower effect, the flame traveled backwards into the can, causing it to explode.

“They all heard a big boom, and then Mason came running out and [he] started taking off his shirt,”
Dark’s mother told WRAL News.

Sources report that Dark then jumped into a river to soothe his burns. This further complicated
the injury, as the risk of infection from the river water is deemed high, adding to Dark’s medical woes.

Before the injury, Dark was a star athlete who competed on Heritage High School’s football team.
Needless to say, Dark is unlikely to play football ever again with the severity of his injuries.

Members of Dark’s family reported that the burns covered 76% of his body. He is currently undergoing
treatment at UNC Burn Center where he is expected to remain for six months.

“The way he looked when those kids saw him when he first came in, to what he looks like now, it’s
100 times different,” Dark’s mother said.

“He’s unrecognizable. Unrecognizable,” she emphasized.

On Wednesday, Dark underwent surgery to get skin grafts, the first step in the long and painful
healing process. He is under sedation on account of the immense pain of his wounds.

The Dark family has organized a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the boy’s medical expenses.
So far, they have raised over $20,000 out of their goal of $25,000.

13-year Old Girl Dies From ‘Chroming’
in Latest Alarming Social Media Trend







An Australian teenager reportedly died from cardiac arrest after inhaling chemicals from an aerosol can
of deodorant, a practice called chroming.

Teens have engaged in huffing, or sniffing, glue and aerosol products for decades but social media is
accelerating participation, according to a National Post report.

Esra Haynes was placed on life support after inhaling the aerosol products but doctors were unable to
restore normal brain function, the report noted.

The report added that inhalants absorbed through the lungs pass to their blood and travel quickly to
the brain, producing brief, immediate intoxication.

The family of a 13-year-old Australian girl who died from “chroming” has urged action to prevent
similar deaths from occurring.

“We want to help other children not fall into the silly trap of doing this silly thing. It’s unquestionable
that this will be our crusade,” Paul Haynes, the girl’s father, told Australian outlet the Herald Sun.
“No matter how much you lead a horse to water, anyone can drag them away. It’s not something
she would have done on her own.

“The ripple effect is that this is absolutely devastating. We’ve got no child to bring home.”

Esra Haynes died after she inhaled fumes from a deodorant can, causing her to go into cardiac arrest
March 31. She remained on life support eight days, at which point doctors determined her brain was
“damaged beyond repair” and her family decided to turn off the machines. 

“[It was] just a regular routine of going to hang out with her mates,” Andrea Haynes, the girl’s mother,
told the Australian news program A Current Affair.

“They’re asking us to bring our family, our friends, to say goodbye to our 13-year-old daughter,”
Paul Haynes said. “It was a very, very, very difficult thing to do for such a young soul.”

Chroming, which appears to be an evolution of a decades-old trend of huffing or sniffing, involves
the participant sniffing anything from aerosol cans to metallic paints, gas and solvents.
Two boys, both 16, died from participating in the trend in 2019, according to The Straits Times.

Chroming has a broader definition, but the name arose from the act of sniffing chrome-based paint
as a means to get high, according to the National Retail Association.

The Victoria Education Department in Australia said it would increase efforts to provide children with
more information about chroming and its deadly effects following Esra Haynes’s death.

Haynes’ parents have also urged schools to teach CPR and are lobbying for a safer and less
toxic deodorant formula.

“We definitely have a mission to raise awareness for kids and anyone that does it,” her sister Imogen
told reporters. “We don’t want that to happen to anyone else. We don’t want another family to go
through this. It’s absolutely horrible.”

Some stores in Australia, including Woolworths and Coles, have started to lock aerosol deodorants
behind a glass case in response to the trend, People reported.


















There are plenty of others



QLD mum's plea after teen daughter left with brain damage from chroming





Queensland mother shares story of how her son died from sniffing aerosol can