Rhiannon Ingle
A 12-year-old boy from Texas, United States, suffered second-to-third-degree burns across his body as his skin 'melted away' after hopping on board a viral TikTok stunt.
Last month (16 August), Caden Ballard and his older brother saw a 'cool' video on the popular social media platform and decided to recreate it.
The experiment in question involved lighting a bottle filled with rubbing alcohol on fire to watch flames rise, local news outlets KXAN Austin and KRBC-TV, along with CBS 42 reported.
However, things didn't go to plan, given that isopropyl alcohol has an almost invisible flame once ignited, as Caden told KXAN Austin: "It looked like the fire had gone out. So, my brother grabbed and said, 'Here, throw it away.' So, I grabbed it to throw it in the trash can, [and] my shirt was on fire."
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Caden's mum, Christina, was on the other side of the property and only found out what was going on from a friend who heard her two boys calling the police, the outlet reports.
"When I walked up to the porch, he was just face, chest, arms, stomach covered in burns. It looked like his skin had been melted away," she recalled, adding that it was unexpected as her sons usually listen to 'story times' on the app.
A fundraiser has since been up for Caden's medical bills and, at the time of writing (3 September), it has raised over $1,700 of its $25,000 goal.
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According to the GoFundMe, Caden suffered 'severe burns' across 11 per cent of his body in the incident.
In one of the latest updates (31 August), Christina revealed that after undergoing surgery, her son was moved to Shriners Paediatric Burn Hospital in Galveston and has since been discharged from the hospital and is being treated as an outpatient.
She shared: "They think he may have some scars, but the Shriners Hospital has mentioned that they will be fitting him with compression garments like gloves and shirts to minimise thick scars.
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"They also want to continue seeing him as he grows because scar tissue doesn’t stretch and grow the same way and because he’s so young, he still has a lot of growing to do."
Christina added that Caden may need plastic surgery in the future.
"Please continue healing prayers as this is a long-haul recovery," she concluded.
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Christina is now urging fellow parents to encourage their kids to not just copy certain trends, stunts and challenges they see online as they 'never know' if it could put them in the hospital or worse.
Thankfully, the damage done to Caden's body by the flames was massively reduced after his older brother acted quickly in pulling off his shirt and instructing him to stop, drop and roll to put out the fire.
"I don’t know how you were brave enough to reach into the flames and pull the shirt off of your brother. But I thank God every single day that you were brave enough to do that," Christina told CBS 42.
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"We got very lucky; unfortunately, it’s bad, but Caden and I are very lucky that it wasn’t a lot worse," she added, per KXAN Austin.
Tyla has reached out to TikTok for comment.