'Fire challenge' craze leaves girl, 12, in hospital fighting for life
A 12-year-old girl is in intensive care after setting herself on fire in a viral craze known as the ‘fire challenge’.
Timiyah Landers is recovering from severe second and third-degree burns covering 49 percent of her body after attempting the challenge, which consists of pouring rubbing alcohol on yourself, lighting it on fire and racing to put it out before you get burned.
Timiyah’s mother, Brandi Owens, woke from a nap at her home in Detroit, US, to see her daughter running down their hallway “on fire from her knees to her hair.”
After she and her fiancé extinguished the flames with towels, they rushed Timiyah to the hospital.
“Her vitals are good, but she’s still on a ventilator and feeding tube. They’re slowly trying to wean her off the ventilator,” Ms Owens told People.
“It will be a long recovery. She had surgery and received temporary artificial skin to her burns, but she’s going to need three or four more surgeries and skin grafts.”
When hearing about the challenge from Timiyah’s friends, Ms Owens said she was “angry, very angry”.
“I couldn’t believe she would do that. She knows better. I don’t know what she was thinking, doing that crazy stuff,” she said.
The distraught mum took to Facebook to warn other parents of the dangers of internet crazes, sharing photos of her daughter in hospital and her charred belongings.
“Attention parents, please, please watch what your kids are doing or watching when it comes to this… My daughter Timiyah was set on fire yesterday due to the fire challenge that’s on YouTube and almost cost her her life.”
She added that Timiyah has a long way to go in her recovery.
The fire challenge, which started going viral in 2014, is unfortunately not the only dangerous craze to go viral.
Earlier this year, people risked their lives while attempting the Tide Pod challenge, which involved eating detergent-filled laundry pods.
Condom snorting required the participant to snort a condom up their nose before pulling out of their mouth, while the table breaking craze saw youths running, jumping and diving onto tables in the aim of breaking them in half.
