The Choking Game

Morning Edition:

"The choking game is a strangulation activity that some kids participate in, using either their hands or something like a rope or a belt or something like that," she says.
Why? Thomas A. Andrew, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner, who has studied the trend, explains: "As the brain is deprived of oxygen, there's this sensation of lightheadedness, which is interpreted as a high. And then once the pressure is released and blood flow is restored in a fashion, they see stars and the feeling is described as a rush," he said.
According to a study Hedberg's colleagues published today in the journal Pediatrics, around 6 percent of more than 5,000 middle-schoolers surveyed in Portland, Ore., have tried the choking game. And about a quarter of them have tried it at least five times, the researchers reported.
"With each of those episodes, obviously, just a little bit of the brain is being damaged," Andrew said. "So who knows what the long-term effects may be on children who do this repeatedly?"

And no one really knows how often the game is being played or how many kids may have died. Back in 2008, a national estimate put the death toll from the choking game at about 82 between 1995 and 2007. But the study relied on media reports that couldn't be verified independently. And many deaths that weren't reported in the news could have been missed.

Man, kids were doing something like this 20 years ago when I was in school (some people also tried smoking corn silk, don't try that either).  However, instead of one person trying to do it to himself, our version involved two people.  If I remember correctly, one person would cross his arms across his chest and hold his shoulders with the opposite hands, and then take a deep breath and hold it.  The other person would bear hug him and pick him up for a little bit.  The first person would faint, and the person would let him go and the guy would collapse on the floor, maybe flop around a little bit and hallucinate.  It always seemed like a really dumb thing to do in my opinion, so I never tried it.  But unlike trying to use a belt to choke yourself, a person actually had a spotter, and usually, several people hung around to watch.  I would guess that if something went wrong, it was more likely that somebody would get help, unlike a person who was by himself.  Maybe those 20 years have been the choking game version of Bowling Alone.  Anyway kids, while the guys I knew who did this are only slightly off in the head, don't do it, it's stupid.