In Britain, the 12-year-old Archie Battersbee been in the news for weeks. The boy has been in a coma since April, his parents assume that he participated in the online challenge in which people try to lose consciousness for a short time. Archie never regained consciousness and was declared brain dead by doctors at the end of May. His parents do not want the treatment to be stopped, so the hospital asked the court this week to make a choice.
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To the great chagrin of Archie’s parents, the judge decided on Monday that the ventilator may be stopped.
The fact that the challenge does not adhere to national borders is apparent from the fact that various videos can be seen on social media of Dutch-speaking children participating in it. Presumably it is mainly Flemish children, because yesterday several schools in East Flanders warned students and their parents not to share the videos. In addition, the Dutch Association of Emergency Medicine Doctors has not yet received any signals that Dutch children have ended up in the emergency room because of the challenge.
‘Could have been fatal’
But yesterday it happened to the daughter of Kim Maassen from Roermond. To ensure that this does not spread further, she is now ringing the bell via RTL Nieuws. “She saved it because of an angel on her shoulder, but I am very aware that this could also have been fatal.”
Kim didn’t sleep a wink last night, she says. The worst-case scenarios kept running through her head.
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Kim is the mother of a twin daughter, and yesterday during school one of the two called her in a panic: “Jaylie has passed out, the ambulance is coming now.” It was unclear what exactly had happened, but Kim’s daughter lay unconscious on the floor. “I was about twenty minutes away from school, so I jumped in the car and drove really fast to her. In the meantime, I quickly called a friend who lives opposite the school and she went straight to her.”
“Wake up!”
On the phone of Kim’s girlfriend, Kim gets questions from the ambulance staff who arrived: does she have underlying illnesses? Did she eat badly? No, Kim didn’t know how this could happen. “When you hear these kinds of questions on the phone for minutes, you are really scared. I thought I would never see my child alive again. When I got there she was still unconscious on the floor, luckily she was breathing on her own and all the reflex tests were good. But we kept yelling, Jaylie, wake up! It was so scary.”
Kim’s daughter opened her eyes for the first time after about forty minutes. “At that moment she could only shake her head and had no idea what had happened. After consultation with the doctors, she was fortunately allowed to go home, where she slowly recovered.”
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‘Challenges are always there’
Justine Pardoen, parenting expert and founder of Bureau Jeugd en Media, informed RTL Nieuws that these kinds of challenges have existed for ‘a long time’. “I’ve been involved in youth culture for twenty years and once in a while something like this comes up again, then it flares up again.”
Partly for this reason, Pardoen has made a lesson for schools about dangerous strangulation and fainting games. “They see these games on YouTube, for example, and are curious about the kick it would give. However, sometimes things go very wrong and someone dies. Such unnecessary deaths can be prevented by providing good information to children.”
The lesson is for everyone watch online.
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Of course, Kim’s first question to her daughter was: What happened? There was no answer at the beginning. Not even when Kim started talking about a challenge. “The teacher had heard that they had talked about it, but Jaylie initially denied. When I spoke to a classmate of hers later in the day, the high word came out: she had participated in a fainting challenge.”
In the end, Kim’s daughter also admitted what had happened. “She said she only did it once, that it went black before her eyes and then fell over. Yesterday I searched social media about the challenge and I was really shocked by what I came across. These kind of videos where young people are influenced to do the same dangerous things should really be banned.”
‘Must be discussed everywhere’
Kim had a ‘very good conversation’ with her daughter, who later realized how wrong it could have gone. “I said: what if I spoke to you alive for the last time yesterday morning? She admitted that she had made a mistake, and the school is also very shocked. They sent an email to all parents yesterday to discuss this at home. But that should not only happen in Roermond, but everywhere in the Netherlands.”
That’s why Kim wants to share her story, even if it just happened. “My daughter did well, but what if a Dutch child ends up in a coma tomorrow, or is declared brain dead by such a stupid video? This really has to stop.”
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