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12-Year-Old Badly Burned Trying To Set Himself On Fire For YouTube Challenge
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 25, 2016
Modified May 25, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 25, 2016
Modified May 25, 2016
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A 12-year-old Queens boy has suffered serious burns after he tried to light himself on fire for a YouTube "fire challenge" video.
Police say that the preteen, whose name has not been released, was inside his Far Rockaway home around 8:30 p.m. last night when he doused himself in rubbing alcohol and set himself on fire while standing in a bathtub. He wasn't able to turn the shower on to put the fire out though, and he suffered third-degree burns covering more than 40 percent of his body.
According to the Post, he was taken to the Nassau University Medical Center Burn Unit in critical condition, but is expected to live.
The "fire challenge" has been social media stunt for at least two years, with teens across the country burning themselves in the process. "You just see fire, you can’t really see nothing,” Fernando Valencia, 16, told KABC News about his attempt (in 2014) at the challenge, which ended in him burning his waist and neck. "Since I saw other people fail, I thought I could do the same thing but actually last longer under the flame... I can't really say nothing else besides it was a dumb idea."
Other teens in Florida and Kentucky have also suffered serious injuries trying to pull off the stunt. One 15-year-old who burned himself doing it was asked what he thought would happen when he set himself on fire: "I don't know, I wasn't thinking really."
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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