Teenage boy left with third degree burns after attempting social media trend
Topics: News, Life, Social media, Parenting
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media
Topics: News, Life, Social media, Parenting
A mum says she had to put out the flames engulfing her teenage son with her bare hands after he set himself on fire to attempt a social media stunt.
Dzhyan Crutcher was left with third degree burns across 45 percent of his body from the waist up while trying to copy something his mum claimed he'd seen on social media.
The stunt the teenager was supposedly trying to imitate was pouring alcohol onto an open flame and on 3 March, the 13-year-old suffered serious burns attempting it himself.
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His mum Tiffany had been expecting a power cut due to bad weather that day so she'd had candles ready in the house in case the lights went off.
The 34-year-old mum said her son took one of the candles into the bathroom and lit it before dousing the flame in alcohol, which caused an explosion
His mum said her son ran out of the bathroom on fire which she tried to put out with her bare hands before her younger son Zaelyn gave her a fire extinguisher.
The 13-year-old was airlifted to hospital and rushed into surgery, and a fire marshal later showed her a video of another child getting injured attempting the same trick.
She said she was 'surprised' that Dzhyan had done it as she'd told her kids not to do things just because they'd seen people on the internet doing them.
She said: "He went into the bathroom and he took a candle and poured alcohol onto it. It exploded onto him catching him on fire. I was there immediately. I heard the explosion.
"He came out of the bathroom and I tried to put him out with my hands at first. We were taught to stop, drop and roll so I tried that and it didn't work."
"Zaelyn grabbed the extinguisher so I put him out then put the bathroom out. It was scary. He was completely on fire from the waist up. It was terrifying. When he was out, he was in shock. We were all in shock. I couldn't see how bad it was in that moment."
Tiffany explained that her son's stomach, chest, face and neck were all burnt but his arms took the worst of the damage, requiring surgeons to cut along both arms to allow circulation after he'd been rushed to hospital.
"He told me himself that he'd been watching videos on social media. It's some kind of trend on social media with rubbing alcohol and a source of flame," the mum explained.
"He wasn't watching the videos in that moment but he'd seen them previously and because I had candles out burning because of the storm he decided to try it in the spur of the moment."
The alcohol he'd used had been in the family's bathroom cupboard for pouring on injuries as a disinfectant.
Dzhyan spent a month in hospital where he received four skin grafts, though his full recovery is expected to take him another two years.