A tragic loss.
A teenager in the US has died after taking part in a TikTok challenge.
13-year-old Jacob Stevens from Greenfield in Ohio was declared brain dead after spending a week on a ventilator.
Jacob attempted the viral TikTok challenge called the “Benadryl Challenge” which sees users take over a dozen pills of the antihistamine with the aim to induce hallucinations.
According to ABC 6, Jacob was at home filming the challenge when his body began seizing.
He was later rushed to the hospital and put on a ventilator but was taken off when doctors could no longer detect brain activity.
“No brain scan, there was nothing there. He said we could keep him on the vent, he could lay there like that but he would never open his eyes, he will never breathe on his own,” Jacob’s grandmother Dianna Stevens told the local station.
Jacob’s parents remembered him as a “well-mannered, funny, loving kid.”
Taking more diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, than the recommended dosage can cause respiratory failure, irregular heartbeat, cardiac arrest, seizures, and death, the National Institutes of Health report.
The challenge Jacob took part in first went viral in 2020 on TikTok and made headlines when a 15-year-old in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma died while doing it.
Benadryl producers Johnson & Johnson later issued a statement after the challenge went viral, deeming it a “dangerous trend” and urged that it should be “stopped immediately”.
“We are working with TikTok and other social platforms to remove content that showcases this behavior,” they said at the time. “We will look to partner across industry and with key stakeholders to address this dangerous behavior.”
