TikTok challenge leaves teen with burns on 80% of his body 

One of the latest TikTok challenges left a 16-year-old boy from North Carolina with burns across 80% of his body, authorities said last Thursday. 

Mason Dark, a teenager from Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his friends were trying to replicate a TikTok challenge known as “The Flame Thrower Challenge,” in which participants create miniature flamethrowers out of a spray paint can and a lighter. 

However, the challenge went wrong and instead caused the can to explode, engulfing Mason in flames.

“They all heard a big boom. And then Mason came running out and started taking off his shirt,” the teen’s mother, Holli Dark, told WRAL. 

Mason immediately jumped into a nearby river to put out the flames. However, that only seemed to make matters worse: Mason suffered from a third-degree burn caused by ripping off the shirt from his back and is currently at high risk of infection from plunging into the river water. 

The teenager was rushed to the UNC Burn Center and had burns covering around 76% of his body. Mason has already undergone several surgeries to get skin grafts. While he is expected to recover, the process might take up to six months and he will be left with permanent damage. 

“He’s unrecognizable. Unrecognizable,” Dark added. “The way he looked when those kids saw him when he first came in, to what he looks like now, it’s 100 times different.” 

The teenager’s mother is hoping that other teens will be discouraged from engaging in dangerous TikTok challenges by learning of the consequences that they can bring. 

"You know, the kids, they all watch so much of tech, talk and do all the different things. The spray paint and lighters and all of that, that's been going on for years and years. So I know that that challenge is out there. They're constantly doing different things on TikTok, imitating this, doing that. It's like these kids just try anything these people do, they see it and they want to imitate it,” Dark said. 

"Please listen to somebody who's not your parent. Please listen to me. Don't try these things. Don't, don't, don't do it. It's not worth it. It takes one second for it to not go right for you that you could be in the situation,” she added.