KETCHUM, Idaho — A 10-year-old boy in southern Idaho has died from self-inflicted strangulation after playing a “choking game,” a coroner determined.
Austin Rasmussen, of Dietrich, was home alone in his bedroom at the time, said Lincoln County Deputy Coroner Mike Bright. Emergency medical personnel worked on the boy for about 45 minutes before he was pronounced dead shortly before 6 p.m., Bright said.
“What had happened was Austin strangled himself playing the choking game and was unable to recover,” Bright told the Idaho Mountain Express. “This game is very deadly. There have been a lot of kids die from this. It should not be played at all.”
So-called choking games, sometimes called fainting games, involve intentionally shutting off the supply of oxygen to the brain with the goal of producing a temporary euphoria.
Rasmussen apparently heard about the choking game from older students at his school, where he was a fourth-grader, the coroner said.
Dietrich School Superintendent and Principal Neal Hollingshead said administrators, teachers and staff had no idea students were talking about the choking game. The majority of the teachers in the district of 250 students didn’t know about the game until it was attributed as a cause in the boy’s death.
“It’s kind of new for us … we’ve basically discovered it on the Internet in recent days,” said Hollingshead. “We’re really working now to encourage kids to talk more with their parents about what they’re doing, all things they’re doing.”
An organization founded by families of choking game victims, called Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play, or GASP, has members in the United States and Canada. The group estimates thousands of children die or suffer permanent brain damage from playing choking games each year.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
