A Florida teenager has been put on life support as a result of injuries sustained while taking part in the dangerous, viral social media craze called the “fire challenge.”
In the challenge, kids douse themselves in something flammable and then set themselves on fire, and that’s what happened to 15-year-old Robert Seals.
Seals’ aunt, Lisa Oliphant, told the Orlando Sentinel that her nephew was playing with two other boys when he was set on fire. “I see the little boy walk up and gush something on him and then flick. I see the little flick, and then my nephew’s running down the street on fire. All his skin is off, arms peeled, hair burnt. His neck…swelled up so bad.”
15 year old Robert Seals is on the way to Shriners Hospital Cincinnati. Family says he's very badly burned. pic.twitter.com/Uy3m9B1r2L
— Steve Barrett (@TVSteveBarrett) October 6, 2015
Oliphant called 911 when she saw her nephew, and the dispatchers instructed her to douse him with water. She did so, and he sat on the curb, struggling to breathe even as the flames were finally extinguished. He was taken to the local hospital with second-degree burns and eventually flown to the burn unit for Shriners Hospitals for Children in Cincinnati.
Although investigators indicate that Seals participated in the challenge willingly, Oliphant does not believe her nephew would be so foolish and wants the other boys to be held accountable.
“My nephew is permanently damaged and that boy did bodily harm to my nephew. I want something done about it,” she said.