A 10 year old girl died of suffocation while taking part in the “Blackout challenge”, a challenge on TikTok

This is not the first time that a challenge on social networks has been fatal for one of its participants. In this case, a 10 year old Italian girl suffocated death in Palermo, Sicily, while participated in a viral challenge offered by the social network TIC Tac.

Antonella, who took part in the so-called “blackout challenge”, in the bathroom of her family home, put a belt around her neck in order to remain breathless as long as possible, while recording the scene with her cell phone. .

The 5-year-old sister discovered the unconscious body and notified her parents. She was quickly rushed to Palermo Children’s Hospital, but did not survive.

“Blackout Challenge” is the proposed game which consists of children blocking their breath until they pass out. Every year it causes accidents, some fatal like this one.

Parents told the newspaper The Republic Another 9-year-old sister explained what happened: “Antonella was playing the choking game.”

“We didn’t know anything,” the girl’s father told the newspaper. “I only knew Antonella had gone to TikTok to watch videos. How to imagine this atrocity? He wondered desperately.

“That my daughter, my little Antonella, die in an extreme game of TikTok, I cannot accept it!”, Added Angelo Sicomero, who together with his wife decided to donate their daughter’s organs so that “d ‘other children can live thanks to her “.

The Palermo public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for “incitement to suicide“.

The girl’s cell phone has been seized by investigators, who will have to determine if Antonella has had contact with other participants and if someone invited her to participate in the challenge or if you were making this video for a friend or relative.

Faced with the tragedy, the platform founded in 2016 which has 100 million users in Europe issued a press release.

“The safety of the TikTok community is our top priority, we are at the disposal of the appropriate authorities to cooperate with any investigation,” they wrote.

With information from AFP.

JPE