Parents described 11-year-old Garrett Pope from Indian Land, South Carolina, as a typical and happy boy. This is a boy who enjoyed playing games with his friends, riding his bike, going fishing, playing football, and playing lacrosse. Unfortunately, according to his father, this 11-year-old from South Carolina was also very impressionable. His parents believe this led to him making a mistake that ended up costing him his life.
This 11-year-old from South Carolina died while playing “The Choking Game.” This is a game during which children cut off their airway in an attempt to gain a sense of euphoria. His father, according to the Miami Herald , is not sure where his son would have learned about this terrible game. The father goes on to say he doesn’t want any other parents to go through what he had his wife have had to suffer.
11-year-old accidentally kills himself in ‘The Choking Game’ https://t.co/UvTjiOki9A (Courtesy Garrett Pope Sr) pic.twitter.com/GkxkKVGUSb
— KFVS News (@kfvsnews) September 5, 2016
“Whatever we can do to prevent this from happening to anybody else, that’s the goal,” Pope [the father] said in an interview on Saturday.
During the interview, the father was making it clear how he wanted to make everyone aware of how serious this game was.
“We [the parents of Garrett] don’t know how we’re going to go about doing that, because the wound is very fresh, very painful. But that’s what we’ll be doing moving forward.”
Officially, the 11-year-old from South Carolina died from accidental asphyxiation on Wednesday afternoon. An autopsy was performed on Thursday, and the case is still being investigated. It was around 4 p.m. on Wednesday when the boy was discovered in his room.
The father of the South Carolina 11-year-old wrote in a public Facebook post that he and his wife spent time looking through all of the family’s electronics and found no signs to suggest their son had been doing any research on the game that ultimately led to his death.
https://twitter.com/bellinghambuzz/status/772178644928126976
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals in a study conducted in 2008 that the game is also referred to as “the blackout game,” “the pass out game,” and the “scarf game.” Previous victims of this terrible game had died by asphyxiating themselves with a dog collar or a towel. According to the CDC, the purpose of the game is to self-strangulate or have someone assist in strangling you in order to achieve a very brief sense of euphoria caused by the cerebral hypoxia. Participants of the game, especially when they are younger in age, can cause serious neurologic injury or even death.
The study from 2008 went on to reveal that roughly 82 deaths occurred in relation to this game between the years of 1995 and 2007. The study also estimated that the age group of victims of this game ranges from as young as 6 to as old as 19. Seventy-one percent of the deaths were males, and the average age of participants was 13.3 years.
In an effort to prevent the game from taking the life of your child, the CDC is encouraging parents – and any caregiver of a child – to learn how to spot the signs that someone is playing the game. Disorientation, the presence of ropes, marks on the neck, and bloodshot eyes are all signs someone is playing the game. You may also find belts tied to doorknobs and furniture.
The mother and father of the 11-year-old from South Carolina went to the middle school their son attended and met with the principal to see if there was anything the school could do to help make parents in South Carolina more aware of this game.
According to the father of the 11-year-old from South Carolina, the family has received amazing support and prayers from the community. In fact, one of the family member’s friends had to drop off a new freezer because the family ran out of places to store the food they had received from the community.
The father claims his message on Facebook is a word of caution to all parents to sit down and discuss the fact that this game is not a game at all with their children. The father wants parents to tell their children this is a game that will get them killed.
“Please talk about this with your kids, and do everything you can to prevent a similar tragedy. He was so young and impressionable, he didn’t know what he was doing, and made a terrible mistake.”
[Image via ShutterStock]