Dying for a Thrill

The Fainting Game

By Gina Roberts-Grey

Innocent pastimes of playing games such as hide and seek or ghost in the graveyard are quickly being replaced by dangerous practices that have claimed the lives of several children nationwide. Giving into peer pressure and searching for the "ultimate high," children as young as 9 and 10 years old have dabbled with a deadly game of making themselves pass out. Whether referring to this game as the fainting game, the passing out game or the choking game, the desired effects are still the same.

Passed down secretly for generations, children in the United States are copycatting some life-threatening activities they've seen glamorized in movies such as Flatliners and publicized in tragic news stories. Gambling with their lives, and often sadly losing, children allow their friends to choke them or willingly hang themselves in an attempt to join a perceived elite group of kids who've achieved a perceived supreme and elite state of euphoria.

Cutting off one's air supply and causing the resulting lack of oxygen to the brain, children hope to experience what they believe is a safe alternative to the "buzz" of drinking or taking drugs. "The horrible irony is that these children don't realize just how dangerous this actually is," says Diana Derby, a child advocate specialist in McHenry, Ill. Instead of the desired "high," children playing these games end up accidentally committing suicide.

Reading postings on message boards dedicated to these dangerous rituals, one is taken aback at the cavalier attitude of those who have "played" this game and "won." "The best feeling ever," "That kid who died didn't know what he was doing," and "A feeling better than sex" are just a few of the frightening words of encouragement children can find when surfing the Internet.

According to data gathered by medical examiners and coroners nationwide, the fainting game results in death more than 75 percent more often for boys than for girls. Although statistics indicate that more boys lose their lives to this game, ironically, more girls than boys actually attempt to "play." "Unfortunately, boys are bred to be tough and cool," says Derby. "Even if they're scared or wanting to back out of participating, they don't because of peer pressure. Girls are more inclined to plan out the game, begin, but then back down due to fear."

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