Wednesday, December 14, 2005

I guess he won

An 11-year-old Horsham boy died over the weekend while playing a high-risk game in which children and teenagers cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain as a way to get high.

Mitchell Walsh, a fifth-grader at Simmons Elementary School in Horsham, accidentally strangled himself late Friday night or Saturday morning while playing the "Choking Game," police said. Family found Mitchell with a cloth belt tied around his neck early Saturday morning. Police believe he was alone at the time of the accident.

Horsham Detective James Vincenti said an investigation revealed that Mitchell had seen an older relative play the game. Police also learned that a number of that relative's friends have played the choking game. Vincenti would not provide the number of friends but said "more than you think." Police notified the parents of those teenagers.

1 comments:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ said...

Thank you for sharing and alerting about the choking game. Last reported there were 500 deaths in 2004 of this "choking game". Kids think nothing will hurt them - this is not a drug - just one time, etc. My son was one of them. He was only 16. He was a "good kid". He would have never tried drugs. He loved life - loved his 9 siblings - and most of all loved God. He had compassion for people. But, he learned of a game - this game he lost - lost his life. He tried the "choking game". His 11 year old brother found him hanging. His 15 year old brother cut him down. We are at almost a year since his death, and it's still very hard. This game is dangerous, foolish, and mostly likely WILL cause death.

Please continue to talk and share about this. More families need to know the dangers of this.  We never knew about the choking game before our son died. Had we known of this, just as we talked to him about drugs, sex, sniffing, etc. we would have talked to him about this.  But we didn't know - and he didn't know the risks.

Matthew's Story
Journaling through the Valley Blog

 

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