The Choking Game The New Deadly Trend among Teenagers

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The Choking Game - The New Deadly Trend among
Teenagers

• SRO MICHAEL BONFIGLIO

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The Choking Game

• Teenagers are using belts, ties, bags, their own
  hands, or any other item that can cause oxygen
  deprivation.
• Pressure is applied to blood vessels or oxygen to
  the lungs is cut off, causing a reduction of
  oxygen to the heart and brain.
• The blood pressure is reduced and the body
  begins the process of dying.

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The Choking Game

• When the choking game is "successful", the
  pressure to the blood vessels is released,
  allowing oxygen to return to the brain, heart and
  other vital organs.
• However, this deadly game isn't always
  "successful".

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CHOKING GAME

• This game has many names
• "pass-out game",
• "fainting game",
• "tingling game",
• "something dreaming game"

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CHOKING GAME

• Though the so-called game is new to many adults,
  it's likely something that children have been
  doing for a long time, said Connecticut-based
  child psychologist Dr. Lawrence Shapiro,
• "The Secret Language of Children How to
  Understand What Your Kids are Really Saying."

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CHOKING GAME

• The age range most commonly involved in this
  behavior is 9-14.
• Some kids think they can 'get high' without using
  drugs or alcohol (SAFE HIGH?)

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There are two parts to the experience.

• The first is a light-headedness (a perceived
  "high") due to reduced blood flow, and therefore
  reduced delivery of oxygen, to the brain.
• The second part comes with the removal of
  pressure on the chest or neck releasing a
  powerful surge of dammed up blood up through the
  carotid arteries into the brain (a perceived
  "rush").

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CHOKING GAME

• There is a choker and a chokee.
• This is dangerous enough as a child puts his/her
  life in someone else's hands.

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CHOKING GAME

• Children playing this deadly game alone have only
  a small window of opportunity in which to loosen
  the knot before they pass out.
• If they miscalculate and collapse before they can
  untie themselves they will likely fall and
  asphyxiate.

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The Choking Game

• Signs to look for are unusual markings on your
  teenager's neck, complaints of headaches, and
  blood shot eyes.
• Also, look around your teenager's room for ties,
  ropes, bags, or other items that could be used
  for asphyxiation.

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CHOKING GAME

• Children have been playing hyperventilation or
  asphyxiation games for decades, but using ropes
  or other ligatures seems to be a new trend.

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CHOKING GAME

• Sometimes, they'll hyperventilate and have
  another child push them to literally knock the
  breath out of them."

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autoerotic asphyxia (AEA)

• This activity has no sexual component and should
  not be confused with autoerotic asphyxia (AEA) as
  practiced by older, nearly exclusively male,
  adolescents and young adults.
• In AEA the sexual element is primary with
  pornography, cross-dressing and elaborate
  bindings.

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The Choking Game

• Chelsea Dunn, a 13-year-old from Boise, Idaho,
  played the choking game - and lost.
• Her family found her hanging in her closet with
  a belt around her neck.
• Chelsea had apparently played the choking game
  the night before her family found her.
• Security cameras at her middle school had earlier
  caught students playing the game.

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A note Chelsea had written to her friend was
found. It read

• "I love doing that pass out thing. You wake up
  and you forget what happened. It comes back
  though you're all tingly."

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Pass out game kills second kid in Idaho
 Wednesday, July 13, 2005

• World News, BOISE, Idaho - A 10-year-old boy
  was found dead, hanging from a tree, apparently
  killed while trying to get high by playing the
  "pass-out game," authorities said. Dalton Eby
  may be the second Idaho child killed in recent
  months while playing a choking game, trying to
  cut off the oxygen supply to the brain to achieve
  a type of "high."

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CRIME ??????

• YES IT IS A CRIME
• Recklessly engages in conduct which creates a
  risk of physical injury to another person.
• Kids think that its okay because they are
  friends.
• He asked for me to do this

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Sec. 53a-63. Reckless endangerment in the first
degree Class A misdemeanor

•    (a) A person is guilty of reckless
  endangerment in the first degree when, with
  extreme indifference to human life, he recklessly
  engages in conduct which creates a risk of
  serious physical injury to another
  person.      (b) Reckless endangerment in the
  first degree is a class A misdemeanor.

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Sec. 53a-64. Reckless endangerment in the second
degree Class B misdemeanor

• A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in
  the second degree when he recklessly engages in
  conduct which creates a risk of physical injury
  to another person.      (b) Reckless
  endangerment in the second degree is a class B
  misdemeanor.

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