Boy, 12, narrowly survives after deadly social media challenge goes wrong

A 12-year-old boy almost died after taking part in a highly dangerous social media trend.

Cesar Watson-King had inhaled a can of anti-perspirant when he collapsed at home in Doncaster, South Yorkshire on August 21 as part of a challenge called chroming.

His mum Nichola King, who had just finished breastfeeding her youngest upstairs, heard a loud thud and went downstairs to see what had happened.

The 36-year-old was shocked to find her son having a seizure on the kitchen floor, before going into cardiac arrest.

Her eldest son Kaiden rang 999 while Nichola carried out CPR as they waited for the ambulance.

Cesar was rushed to hospital and placed in a medically induced coma for two days after suffering more seizures and cardiac arrests.

Thankfully the boy recovered and is now back home, but mum-of-four Nichola has shared photos of him receiving CPR and in intensive care to warn others about the dangers of chroming.

The trend involves someone inhaling toxic chemicals such as paint, solvent, aerosol cans, cleaning products or petrol to get a short-term ‘high’.

It can leave people with slurred speech, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea and disorientation but can also cause a heart attack or suffocation.

Earlier this year, Tommie-Lee Gracie Billington, an 11-year-old from Lancashire, died from a suspected cardiac arrest after he and his friends tried craze at a sleepover.

While in 2023, Esra Haynes, from Melbourne, Australia, died in similar circumstances after inhaling deodorant at a sleepover, The Mirror reported.

Another child, 12-year-old Teigan Solomon, from Kent, was taken to hospital with heart palpitations, and vomited for days after she also tried the trend on a sleepover.

Recalling the moment she heard her son fall, Nichola said: ‘I had just finished breastfeeding my baby and was drifting off to sleep when I heard this really loud bang. I thought one of the kids had done something.

‘I had heard Cesar creeping downstairs and thought he’d gone downstairs for something to eat. The bang sounded like someone had fallen over.

‘I heard like a moaning sound from downstairs and thought Cesar had broken a bone or something. I started going downstairs and saw Cesar lying on the floor and his eyes were rolling back into his head.

‘It was terrifying. He was having a seizure.’

Nichola ran upstairs to get her phone but said her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t unlock it and asked her eldest to call an ambulance.

She then began performing CPR on her son to try and restore his breathing.

‘I thought he’d fallen over and hit his head. I had no idea what had happened. He went blue and stopped breathing. I thought he’d died.

‘I was in complete shock. I’d watched my son die and watched the light go out of his eyes.’

After Cesar was taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary, police told Nichola they had found a can of Aldi Lacura deodorant and other chroming paraphernalia on the kitchen floor – leading them to believe he had inhaled the anti-perspirant before falling unconscious.

She said: ‘I’d not heard of [chroming] before this. An older boy had showed him how to do it.

‘When police told me what he’d inhaled, I thought he was going to die. I knew it said on the back of cans “solvent abuse kills instantly”‘.

Cesar was transferred to Sheffield Children’s Hospital, where he was placed in the medically induced coma for 48 hours.

When he came out of the coma he began to show signs of progress, soon breathing on his own as well as talking and walking.

After eight days in hospital, Cesar was discharged and able to return home.

Nichola said: ‘I was over the moon. He was almost back to completely normal when he was discharged – eating, drinking, having a laugh. He just feels tired.

‘We don’t know about long-term damage, but his short-term memory is very bad. He couldn’t remember what had happened.

‘If I hadn’t heard something that night, I’d have come downstairs to a dead body the next morning. I’ve spoken to Cesar and asked him to never do anything like this again. I’ve thrown out everything in the house that sprays.’

Nichola said she wants to tell children who are thinking of trying chroming: ‘It’s not worth it.’

‘It might feel good but it definitely doesn’t when you’re in the hospital trying to breathe for yourself and the pain you cause to your parents.

She added: ‘And I want to stress the importance of parents being first-aid trained. I think anyone with kids should attend a course as it could be the difference between life and death.’

Aldi declined to comment.

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