They found Garrett Pope Jr. in his room Wednesday afternoon, the air choked out of his young lungs.
He had been playing a game, officials suggested, one far more dangerous than the fishing trips and lacrosse matches the 11-year-old boy’s parents knew he loved. It goes by different names, most sounding just as harmless as any other sleepover activity for preteens: “Space Cowboy,” “Cloud Nine,” “Five Minutes in Heaven,” “Good Kid’s High.”
But the most common name, and the one used by Garrett’s parents, is the “Choking Game.”
They blame the Choking Game for killing him.
“It’s not a ‘game’ as it’s been coined,” Garrett Pope Sr. told The Lancaster Newsin South Carolina. “My son was very impressionable and the term ‘game’ implies that it’s fun. We need to change that perception.”
[The deadly, persisting popularity of ‘the choking game’]
In the days since the boy’s death, rumors have swirled about the cause. As is the case in many deaths resulting from the Choking Game, some in the community speculated it was suicide. But in local media reports and aFacebook post shared thousands of times, Pope and officials from the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office said the young boy died of accidental asphyxiation.
The case, deputy coroner Tony Broome told the Lancaster News, is “almost textbook.”
Demonstrated in YouTube videos and hyped online, the point of the game is to purposefully, albeit temporarily, cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain, which creates a euphoric, intoxication-like feeling for the participant. Without using illegal drugs, the kids who play can feel high.
[Teen’s Death in ‘Choking Game’ Focuses Attention on Dangerous Practice]
The consequences can be deadly. Over a 12-year period — from 1995 to 2007 — the CDC recorded 82 deaths from the game that were not motivated by sexual arousal. During that same time period, the advocacy website GASP (which stands for Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play) documented nearly 400 in the United States.
According to the CDC, 86.6 percent of those killed were male, and the average age was about 13 years old.
The game can be most dangerous when played alone, according to the CDC report. Children have used belts slung from doorknobs. Others have used ropes, scarves and even shoelaces.
In two cases studied by the CDC, the young children — both age 13 — played the game alone at home after seeing it played at recent parties and in the school locker room.
The Popes worry that’s how their son learned of it.
Please read. Share. From a broken family whose son accidentally killed himself this week: http://tinyurl.com/zeyd4pw
After he died, they checked the family electronics, looking through search histories that might tell them how their 11-year-old son could learn of such a dangerous activity.
“We do not know where Garrett learned this, but the logical source would be from other kids in school, or in our neighborhood,” Pope wrote in a Facebook plea to other parents last week. “Our tablets and computers show no online research that he might have done.”
Pope continued: “Please know that his senseless death was not intentional. He took this terrible ‘game’ too far. My family has never felt pain like this before, and we don’t anyone else to go through what we are going through. Please talk about this with your kids, and do everything you can to prevent a similar tragedy. He was so young and impressionable, he didn’t know what he was doing, and made a terrible mistake. We miss him.”
[‘Choking Game’ Turned Deadly for 82 Youths]
Garrett was the oldest son of Pope and his wife, Stacy, they wrote in the Facebook post. A sixth grade student who had just started playing football last week, he wanted to go to Clemson, they wrote, and was “funny, smart, and an amazing son to us and brother to his siblings.”
Garrett, they said, loved to read. His parents have created in his name a memorial fund to buy books for Indian Land Elementary and Middle schools. The Popes have talked with their son’s school principal and are trying to mobilize a community educational effort.
Stacy Pope thinks more information may have saved her son, she told the Herald.
She first heard of the Choking Game after a summer football coach mentioned the game, she told the newspaper. But when she raised the topic with Garrett, the boy claimed he knew nothing about it.
“I should have pushed it further,” Stacy Pope told the Herald. “If you talk to your kids and they said they don’t know about it, don’t stop there. You educate them on what it is, it’s not a game and it can kill you.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/06/he-took-this-terrible-game-too-far-father-warns-parents-that-the-choking-game-killed-his-young-son/?hpid=hp_hp-morning-mix_mm-choking%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
