A TikTok challenge that went horribly wrong left a 16-year-old North Carolina boy severely disfigured, with burns covering nearly 80% of his body.
Mason Dark and his friends were creating a makeshift torch with a spray paint can and a lighter, which triggered an explosion that consumed the teens in flames.
“He’s unrecognizable. Unrecognizable,” his mother, Holli Dark
The teens from Wake Forest, a town roughly 17 miles northeast of Raleigh, were participating in a dangerous TikTok challenge where social media users use flammable aerosols to create miniature flamethrowers.
Mason’s family recalled hearing a ‘boom’ at their home in Wake Forest, North Carolina, moments before they saw the teenager rush outside and jump into the lake with 75 percent of his body burned.
Mason was seen in a recent photo asleep on the hospital bed while wrapped in white bandages. The extent of his injuries were unknown until Thursday when he underwent ‘the first of many surgeries.’
“We come to find out now from the surgery, that he’s got the third-degree burns… it’s like a T in his back and it was from him taking off his shirt, and then it got stuck or something,”
Holli said
‘We did not find out until yesterday that it was actually 76 percent of his body.’
Holli described her son as outgoing and is in disbelief she doesn’t recognize him.
‘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,’ she told the news outlet.
Mason is expected to recover in the burn center for about six months as the extent of his condition remains fully unknown. According to Holli, her son’s condition is at risk for progressing.
‘He jumped into a river to extinguish the flames. The risk of infection from the river water is high, on top of having 2nd and 3rd degree burns,’ she wrote on GoFundMe.
As of Friday night, more than $17,000 was raised to assist with the teenager’s medical bills and other essentials.
Mason is one of several teenagers who has attempted the risky TikTok challenge.
