Written By: Prerna Mittra | Updated : September 5, 2024 1:36 PM IST
Chroming, also called 'huffing', involves inhaling toxic chemicals, often from household products, to get high. (Representational image/Freepik)
A TikTok challenge turned fatal for an 11-year-old boy from the UK, who died after inhaling some toxic chemicals and going into cardiac arrest. According to news reports, he participated in a dangerous trending online challenge called 'chroming'. The family of the deceased -- identified as one Tommie-Lee Gracie Billington -- has been in mourning ever since. Recently, many challenges and trends have emerged from the video-sharing app. While some of them have been educational, others -- like the one that claimed Tommie-Lee's life -- have put the spotlight back on the perils of social media, the need for parental guidance, and why there must be scrutiny of children's online activities that influence their offline behaviour.
According to a People report, Billington went into cardiac arrest and later died at a friend's house in Lancaster, England, after the two tried a social media challenge known as 'chroming' during a sleepover. Per the Times of London, which reported on the boy's death, chroming -- also called 'huffing' -- involves 'inhaling toxic chemicals, often from household products, to get high'. The boy's grandmother reportedly said: "He died instantly after a sleepover at a friend's house. The boys had tried the TikTok craze of 'chroming'. Tommie-Lee went into cardiac arrest immediately and died right there and then. The hospital did everything to try and bring him back, but nothing worked. He was gone."
"Both our families are utterly devastated, but we all want the same thing," she said in the Times of London. "This is breaking us all, but we want to help save other children's lives and give families awareness to keep their children safe."
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), experimentation with volatile substances (inhalants) is common during early adolescence, and human studies 'consistently demonstrate' chronic use is associated with significant toxic effects, including neurological and neuropsychological impairment.
The NIH states that while sniffing the fumes of aerosol spray paint or 'chroming' is the most popular form of inhalant abuse in Australia, petrol sniffing is a significant problem for Indigenous communities. In Britain, inhalant abuse frequently involves butane gas from lighter refills and has been associated with numerous deaths.
It adds that despite 'long-standing awareness of the significant morbidity and mortality associated with inhalant abuse', neuropharmacological research has been 'comparatively sparse' until recently.
NIH explains chroming is the 'deliberate inhalation of volatile substances' called inhalants that can cause 'serious harm to the integrity of the central nervous system and disrupt normal trajectories of psychological, emotional and neurobiological development'.
The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne explains that volatile substances can be inhaled by a variety of methods, like:
Huffing: Inhaling from a chemically-soaked cloth held over the nose and mouth.
Bagging: The substance is placed in a plastic bag, and the vapours are inhaled.
Sniffing: Directly inhaling the substance from its container.
Additionally, it should be noted that a wide range of volatile solvents intended for household or industrial use are inhaled:
Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne adds that clinic effects are generally short-lived (<6 hours) after acute exposure.
Initial: Euphoria, disinhibition, hallucinations and impulsive behaviour followed by CNS depression, slurred speech and ataxia; headache, dizziness.
Acute medical complications: Encephalopathy and seizures, palpitations, tachydysrhythmias and QT prolongation, dyspnoea from aspiration and pneumonitis, toluene causes hyperchloremic acidosis from renal tubular acidosis and hyperkalemia.
Sudden death (sudden sniffing death): A typical example is a child who has used an inhalant substance followed by a cardiac arrest when surprised or running.
