Each year, suffocation games cause about ten deaths in France, among children aged 8 to 12 on average. The APEAS association is launching an awareness campaign to publicize the weak signals of these practices.
Gaspard, 13, lost his life in April 2020 after trying the headscarf game. His father has since been fighting for better awareness among parents who sometimes do not know the existence of this challenge, or who do not know how to recognize the warning signs before the drama.
The game of the scarf or “black out challenge” consists of a deprivation of oxygen produced by a strangulation, the objective being to experiment hallucinatory sensations when reaching a state of cerebral hypoxia, a decrease in oxygen supply to the brain. If this game is sometimes played in groups, some children reproduce the gesture alone at home and the risk incurred is increased tenfold: without a witness, the child may lose consciousness and not be revived, the situation then becomes irreversible after only 3 minutes. The statistics on the subject are quite worrying since 84% of children are able to name at least one dangerous game name, and that 1 in 4 recognizes that they have already been offered to play one of these games. Gaspard’s father joined an association, the APEAS (Accompany, Prevent, Educate, Act, Save), which has been campaigning since 2002 for better prevention of these dangerous games. The collective has just launched an awareness campaign to make known the weak signals of these practices.
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Raise awareness to protect
The APEAS association lists an average of 10 deaths per year in France caused by these games of asphyxiation. Facing risk of increased viralization of these practices because of platforms like TikTok, the association is launching an unprecedented awareness campaign to help parents identify the weak signals of these practicesdiscrete but identifiable signals if one is sufficiently informed.
The aim of the campaign is to highlight the silent nature of these practices and their symptoms in order to alert parents. Anxious to preserve the privacy of their children, loved ones can miss these weak signals such as suspicious marks on the neck, violent headaches, a sudden drop in visual acuity or even muffled noises in the room or links lying around among the child’s belongings.
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For Laurent, Gaspard’s dad, better awareness could have avoided the family drama he went through: “If we had known, our son’s death would certainly have been avoided.”.
The children who practice these asphyxiation games are on average between 8 and 12 years old, and are not profiles identified as fragile: on the contrary, they are often happy children who are open to others, as detailed in the press release. Corn, at an age where socialization and group conformity matter more than anythingcomplying with certain practices – even dangerous ones – is sometimes the only way to be able to remain in “the norm”.