A 12-year-old boy was found unconscious by his cousin after trying to mimic a scene from the Squid Game series as a prank, an inquest was told.
Sebastian Cizman, 12, was found unconscious at the family home in Glasshoughton, West Yorkshire, during his younger brother’s First Holy Communion celebrations.
It is believed to have mimicked a challenge that encourages children to choke until they pass out, which has been linked to multiple child deaths around the world.
Health experts warn that such procedures can cause permanent brain damage or death in less than five minutes.
Sebastian was found with a sheet around his neck, motionless, on the steps of the family’s terraced house on Friday night.
Despite desperate attempts by the emergency services to revive him, he was tragically pronounced dead at the hospital.
Sebastian was a fan of the game based on Netflix’s dystopian thriller Squid Game, and police found a picture of the show’s character being hanged on his phone, the inquest was told.
He was described as a popular boy and a “prankster” who liked to make his friends laugh. The inquest was also told that he had previously been known to feign unconsciousness while playing with others.
After speaking with the family, police concluded that he may have been trying to recreate what he saw in the Squid Game, but that the situation had gone wrong.
On the day of his death, Sebastian shared a picture of the hanged Squid Game character in a WhatsApp group.
A police investigation found no evidence that he had searched for dangerous challenges on TikTok, but found that he had watched the Squid Game and searched YouTube for a first aid video on “surviving choking when alone”.
Speculation about dangerous online challenges emerged shortly after his death, but police found no evidence to support them, an inquest was told.
Sebastian’s family had previously spoken to him about the dangers of such online challenges, and he said he would never attempt them.
Detective Sergeant Paul Bayliss, who investigated the circumstances of Sebastian’s death, said the boy’s interest in Squid Game, a picture of a suicidal character found on his phone and his “joking nature” led to speculation about how the tragedy happened.
Principal of St Wilfred’s Catholic High School, Dr. Philip Dore, said Sebastian was a popular, happy and funny student who could make the class laugh.
He was the representative of the class and received more than 200 positive comments from teachers and was previously named “student of the class”.
Sebastian’s parents, Marcin and Katarzyna, said he was a happy boy without any mental health problems.
In the statement, they stated that they believe his death was the result of a tragic accident.
Earlier this year, in an interview with the Daily Mail, they called for urgent action to hold tech giants accountable for the dangerous videos being posted and spread on their platforms.
Kasia (37), an administrative worker, said:
“They should take the people who promote these challenges and send them to prison, so that no other child dies.
These platforms do nothing. Everything is completely out of control. They make money and don’t care.
It’s hard for me to say this, but I hope that the loss of my child will help other children to understand the danger.
And that the people who run social networks will do something to stop this.
How many children must die for action to be taken?
My message to other parents is: check your kids’ phones before it’s too late.”
Sebastian was found seriously injured on the steps of the family home at the end of the row, during what the family described as an “absolutely happy” day, when they celebrated their younger brother Mike’s (9) communion with relatives from Poland.
Kasia said:
“We were cooking downstairs and the kids were playing on the trampoline.
Marcin brought ice creams and invited the children. Everyone got off except Sebastian.
Marcin asked: ‘Where is Sebastian?’ The relative said they got tired from jumping and he went upstairs to rest.
He sent them to call him, and they came back after a few seconds and said, ‘We don’t know if Sebastian is joking or not, but he’s lying on the stairs.’
We ran upstairs and found him. He took the sheet from the duvet, which was wrapped around his neck, but not tightly.
We immediately called an ambulance and started resuscitation. We didn’t stop until the paramedics arrived.”
Sebastian, a self-taught classical pianist, was able to access social media even though the platforms require users to be at least 13 years old.
He had no history of self-harm, and his parents say he would never knowingly put his life in danger.
Marcin said:
“He was able to sign in no questions asked. He was smart enough to do it. Smart enough to work around it.”
This comes after the parents of four British teenagers filed a lawsuit against TikTok in February over the deaths of their children, who they claim are linked by similar challenges.
The lawsuit relates to the 2022 deaths of Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Julian ‘Jools’ Sweeney, 14, and Maia Walsh, 13.
These deadly trends, which have been widely condemned by experts, often appear in the feeds of social media users even when they are not directly searching for them.
(Vijesti.ba)
