YouTube stunt ends with teen in coma

Boy thrown into trees after rope tied to sled comes loose from car

A Burlington,Ontario 16-year-old is comatose and in critical condition with severe head injuries after a video stunt gone terribly wrong.

He was badly injured in a secluded church lot near his high school Tuesday while car-boarding – a dangerous YouTube stunt in which teens film themselves being towed behind vehicles on skateboards and sleds.

His 17-year-old friend has been charged with dangerous operation of a vehicle causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

The crash happened as a group of teens stood cheering while the stunt was recorded on a cellphone video camera.

Yesterday, Robert Bateman High School students said the group built a sled out of two snowboards glued to a flying saucer toboggan and tried it out earlier that day.

They filmed it and showed the cellphone video to the boy, who agreed to try the stunt.

"The first time they did it, they were going 30 kilometres an hour," said a student.

"The second time, they were going 60 kilometres with (the boy)."

Around 1 p.m. Tuesday, four friends jumped into the car while the teen, wearing a motorcycle helmet and gloves, hopped onto the sled.

"They did four laps of the church parking lot," said Halton police spokesman Sgt. Brian Carr.

On the fourth lap, the tow rope ripped off the sled and the teen was thrown into a line of trees.

The video shows the moment the boy hurtles away, but not the impact.

The other teens picked up the unconscious boy and drove him to hospital.

On a Facebook page set up in support of the boy, the teen's family says he is in bad shape in Hamilton General Hospital's intensive care unit.

"This is his sister," the entry says.

"For all of you that are concerned, this is the newest update. His brain is badly bruised because it was shaken so badly."

"With the first 72 hours, this causes swelling of the brain which is life-threatening."

"He is stable now and still in a coma. All the doctors can do now is monitor the swelling and pray for the best. ... His injuries are extremely severe."

Yesterday, police said teens need to realize such stunts are fraught with peril.

Car-boarding "is not a major problem in Halton," Carr said.

"But it's dangerous. There is no other way of describing it. It's a dangerous event and we advise not to do it."

"How to Kill Classmate" Video Posted to YouTube by 11-, 12-Year Olds

What kind of sociopaths are being raised today? A group of 11- and 12-year old girls posted a video to YouTube (since removed) titled "Top Six Ways to Kill Piper."

They include such time-honored ways as shooting her, making her commit suicide, and pushing her off a cliff. Beth Smith, mother of Piper, told KING5-TV the cartoon was set to a Hannah Montana song called "True Friend" and posted on on the popular video sharing website, YouTube.

Now, some could call this just a joke, but really, it goes to show just how far kids will go in their cruelty to those they don't like in school. With the Internet, the teasing that would once be localized to a school can now go global.

Piper attends Elk Plain School of Choice in Spanaway, WA, as do the girls who made the video.

Worse, while some of the parents were shocked, others dismissed it. Smith said one man blew it off and "said he was making dinner."

The School District says it can't say how the girls were disciplined. But district spokeswoman Krista Carlson told the local TV station that the students involved "have expressed their remorse about this incident."

Here is the video below:


Thoughts??

The Choking Game: A deadly fad

A deadly game Spread by YouTube, This deadly fad killed Kevin Tork, 15: ‘We have to stop this’

It goes by many names, including “the good kids’ game,” because it’s a way for kids who never drink or do drugs to get high.

It’s also a way for them to end up dead.

Ken and Kathy Tork know that now. Their son Kevin was a good kid — a bright and generous 15-year-old who seemed to have everything going for him. But the boy played what is most commonly called the “choking game” — a fad among teenagers that experts say could more accurately be called “suffocation roulette” — and he lost. Kevin was discovered unconscious in his room by his 11-year-old sister.

“You think the kid’s happy, always has a smile on his face, so you’re not really red-flagged for this until it [happens],” Kathy Tork told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Friday in New York. She had come to the studio along with her husband and daughter to warn other parents of the dangers of a deadly game that is learned at parties and camps and on YouTube, and which is claiming the lives of kids as young as 9 or 10.

“I would never guess he was doing anything like this,” she added.

Man on a mission
Kevin Tork died on March 30. What made it even more painful for his parents was that Ken Tork had seen a televised report on a young person who died playing the game and talked with his son about it. He told Kevin to promise he would never engage in anything so dangerous, and Kevin promised.

Ken Tork told Vieira he didn’t know how he would be able to go on after his son died. While praying for guidance, he said, he felt his son speaking to him.

“He reached into my heart. He pulled pieces of my heart together when I felt I couldn’t go on,” he told Vieira, adding that his son then gave him a mission: “There are other kids doing this. We have to stop this, and it’s up to you.”

If he could do it again, Ken Tork said, he would have made sure his son couldn’t access YouTube, where many videos are posted showing kids playing the game and giving instructions on how to do it.

“I didn’t go on YouTube to see what he was seeing. I didn’t know,” the father said. He then offered advice to other parents: “Restrict YouTube. Go in right now and password-protect it. Learn the code words for this game. Make it as difficult as you can for these kids to get to these Web sites. They’re showing them exactly how to do it.”

A Deadly game with many names
Among the many code names for the game are the American Dream, airplaning, black hole, black-out game, California choke, cloud nine, dream game, fainting game, flatlining, funky chicken, gasp game, knock-out game, pass-out game, purple dragon, purple hazing, the scarf game, something dreaming game, space cowboy, space monkey, suffocation roulette, and the tingling game.

There are no hard statistics on how many lives have been lost to the game, which experts say is played primarily by tweens and teens up to the age of 16. Deaths, which typically result from kids tying something around their necks and often hanging from a bedpost or clothing rod, may look like suicides, and public health researchers have a hard time sorting out choking-game deaths from suicides and suffocation deaths associated with autoeroticism.

But the federal Centers for Disease Control has identified at least 82 choking-game deaths in the United States from 1995 to 2007. The Web site ChokingGame.net, which attempts to educate parents about the activity, claims that more than 400 kids have died playing the game.

Although kids describe the sensations associated with being choked to unconsciousness as a “high,” that’s really misleading, said.Dr. Thomas Andrew, New Hampshire’s chief medical examiner. Andrew joined Vieira and the Torks to discuss warning signs parents should look for.

What kids call a high is really the light headedness they experience as blood flow and oxygen to the brain are cut off and they pass out. When they regain consciousness, there’s the sensation of a sudden rush of blood back into the brain.

“They get two sensations for one activity,” Andrew explained.

The game is practiced at sleepovers, scout camps and even church camps. After doing it with others, kids may pursue the sensations the game produces by themselves at home.

Andrew listed a number of warning signs parents should look for, including marks, bruises and abrasions on a child’s neck. Also, choking causes tiny blood spots to appear on the eyes and face. Parents should also look for such things as a necktie looped around a bedpost, a dog collar with a leash or a bent clothing rod in the child’s closet — the result of hanging from it.

They should also be alert for a sudden decline in academic performance. Kids who play the game alone may demand long periods of privacy in their rooms. When they come out, they may be slow to react or have slurred speech. Complaints of headaches are also a warning sign.

Ken Tork has started a blog to warn other parents about the perils of the choking game.

“He was the perfect son in every way,” he writes on the blog. “He was happy and fun-loving and caring. He would be the first to jump in without being asked and help where needed. He loved his family fiercely. He loved to laugh and make others laugh. He was in several plays in school, he loved music, basketball, writing poetry and stories. He loved making swords and models and he was the most honest young man there has ever been. He truly was perfect in every way.”

Now Kevin is gone. Ken Tork doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through such a horrible loss. And so he repeated to Vieira and everyone watching: “They’re going to learn by watching on YouTube. Block YouTube. Block access to it.”

He said he will continue hammering on that until everyone is aware of the deadly game. “I’m not stopping till it’s done,” he said.

Sales of energy drinks to kids should be banned: medical society

Racing hearts, anxiety and high blood pressure are among the symptoms that can come from consuming energy drinks, says the P.E.I. Medical Society, and it wants stronger controls.

Society president Dr. Bill Scantlebury told the legislature's committee on social development Thursday that he's seeing people with a wide range of symptoms both in his practice and in the emergency room. He said it's a particular worry in kids.

"It's the youth that are more susceptible to the marketing, and they don't listen to the education as much as an adult should," Scantlebury told the committee.

"When the maturity's not there enough in a 12-year-old, they don't understand what caffeine is probably, and they're not going to understand necessarily the risks. Young people just don't worry about their health."

The medical society wants the province to ban the sale of energy drinks to kids, and Scantlebury found some support amongst MLAs on the committee.

"I think greed has surpassed good common sense here, and safety," said Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Currie.

Liberal MLA Cynthia Dunsford went after the industry's claims that it is not marketing to youth.

"When you look at this advertisement that the last group presented, with a young person on a skateboard surrounded by a Wii, energy drinks and all this ... that is directed at youth. I cannot see how any company can say that is not directed at youth," said Dunsford.

Anthony van Heyningen executive director of Refreshments Canada, an industry group representing soft drink companies, including Coca Cola and Pepsi, defended the products. He said they are safe if used according to directions on the label.

"They have a place within the market place; they are not targeted towards children," van Heyningen told the committee.

"I would suggest there may be a role for parents to assist in monitoring their intake. I know for my children, I would certainly be monitoring what they were doing."

Refreshments Canada says the market focus for energy drinks is adults in their early 20s.

Obese kids have arteries of 45-year-olds: study

Obese children have neck arteries that have prematurely aged and look more like those of 45-year-olds, new research says, putting them at high risk for future heart disease and high cholesterol.

After measuring the inner-wall thickness of the carotid (neck) arteries in 70 children, researchers found the children's vascular age was 30 years older than their real age.

Vascular age is the age at which the thickening is normal for a subject's gender and race.

"There's a saying that 'you're as old as your arteries,' meaning that the state of your arteries is more important than your actual age in the evolution of heart disease and stroke," Dr. Geetha Raghuveer, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine and cardiologist at Children's Mercy Hospital, said in a statement. "We found that the state of the arteries in these children is more typical of a 45-year-old than of someone their own age."

The average carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) measurement was 0.45 millimetres, with the highest being 0.75 mm.

The higher the CIMT reading, the more plaque is built up in the arteries that allow blood to flow to the brain. When these arteries become constricted, it can lead to heart attack and stroke.

The findings will be presented Wednesday at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2008 conference in New Orleans.

The researchers used ultrasounds to measure the artery thickness in their study subjects, who had an average age of 13.

The study found that the subjects had abnormal levels of one or more types of cholesterol: high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol; low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good cholesterol; or high triglyceride levels, which is the amount of fat circulating in the blood.

On average the children had:

- cholesterol levels of 223.4 milligrams per declitre (mg/dL), less than the reading of 170 recommended by the American Heart Association.

- LDL levels of 149.8 mg/dL, more than the acceptable 110.

- triglyceride levels of 151.9, which is higher than the recommended cap of 150.

The researchers found that having a higher body mass index (BMI) and higher triglyceride levels had the biggest impact on CIMT.

The 38 children who had high triglyceride levels had a CIMT reading above the 25th percentile for the average 45-year-old, which means these children "had better get serious in doing everything they can in terms of changing their diets and activity," Raghuveer said.

Previous research has shown that CIMT can be reduced when high-risk children take cholesterol-lowering drugs. As well, other studies have shown that exercise can improve blood-vessel function in children with a high BMI.

"One hopes that most of these kids won't have to go to the cholesterol-lowering drugs, but will go for lifestyle changes," Dr. Ruth McPherson of the Ottawa Heart Institute said. "But a few will require medications."

Further studies must be conducted to determine if exercising, losing weight or taking medication for high triglyceride levels can lower existing plaque buildup, Raghuveer said.

Father arrested for throwing acid at kids

A man who was sought by police in Texas after four children were burned with sulfuric acid has turned himself in, authorities said Monday.

Tracy Lynn Escobedo, 27, called KXII-TV and asked that a crew videotape him as he turned himself in Sunday.

"I would never throw acid at nobody. It was an accident," Escobedo says repeatedly on the video as he surrenders to Cooke County sheriff's deputies. "I ran because I was scared. I hurt my kids. It was an accident. ... I would never hurt my kids. I love them."

Escobedo is charged with four counts of injury to a child, the sheriff's office said.

The children involved were ages 14, 7, 4, and 18 months, authorities said.

In the incident last week near Gainesville, Texas, a container of sulfuric acid ruptured in a pickup truck, police said.

Cynthia Stout -- a woman believed to be the mother -- and three of the children were left at a cafe by Escobedo, who took the baby with him, authorities said. Escobedo then gave the baby to another woman, believed to be a relative, at a residence, authorities said.

When police arrived at the cafe, Stout attempted to flee and resist arrest, but was taken into custody, authorities said. She was being held on suspicion of child endangerment.

It was still unclear at this time why sulfuric acid was in the truck.

Cooke County Sheriff Michael Compton said all four children are being treated at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Speaking to CNN early Monday, Compton said the condition of the 7-year-old "is not very good, I don't think. The others are stable."

The state has temporary custody of the children, Compton said.