Viral “challenge” videos are all fun and games. That is, until someone gets hurt. And with the uptick in video challenges on apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, there has definitely been a spike in injuries related to the fast-moving trends. A new challenge that has recently gone viral — called the “skull-breaker” challenge — is the latest one to hit the internet, and this one is true to its name. It’s about as dangerous and as downright cruel as it sounds.
The trend involves getting an unsuspecting friend being told to jump at the same time as two people standing on either side. But instead of jumping, the two on the outside use their feet to sweep their friend’s legs out from under them so they fall and hit the ground, potentially smacking their body and possibly their head.
Two New Jersey teens are now being charged over the challenge. Prosecutors in Camden County charged two minors with third-degree aggravated assault and third-degree endangering an injured victim. It was in regard to a January incident related to the prank. According to a news release from the office, the prank caused another minor to suffer a seizure as well as a head injury and concussion. But it's not unlikely that there are far more injuries due to the skull-breaker challenge.
Video footage of the challenge is incredibly frightening. Repeatedly, we can see individuals who look like they have been hurt as a result. You can hear the loud smacking sound as heads hit the ground. In one case, in this video footage that is being widely circulated, one boy falls to the ground and doesn't move.
The boy in this case was injured on January 24, says his mother, Stacy Shenker of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She told NBC News that her 13-year-old son was injured while at school. She said she and her husband did not know what this challenge was until it sent her son to the hospital because he was suffering a major concussion.
She said that she received a call from school letting her know that her seventh grader had been injured. By the time she arrived at school, just 20 minutes later, he was nonresponsive. An ambulance had been called to take him to the hospital.
After arriving at the school, Stacy said she was told by first responders that her son, who was unresponsive at the time, had suffered a seizure. “Initially, we didn’t know what happened,” she said, noting that her son spent more than a day in the hospital. “At that point, we had never heard of the prank.”
The hospital ran tests on the boy to see how severe his injuries were. Then the school called Stacy's husband to tell him that the child had been injured in the "skull-breaker" challenge. It had to be incredibly jarring to find out that their son was so seriously injured from a prank.
The boy spent more than 24 hours in the hospital due to his injuries before returning home to recover. His mother says that he will also need some physical therapy while he continues to heal. “It was really very scary,” she said. “My son is slowly making progress.”
The two Cherry Hill students accused of injuring Stacy's son have been charged with third-degree aggravated assault and third-degree endangering an injured victim, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office told NBC News on Tuesday. It's certainly good news that these careless individuals are being held responsible. But hopefully, other teens will learn from their mistakes so that there are no more injuries.
It's incredibly scary, especially because this is not the first incident of kids getting injured as a result of this challenge. Another teen was badly injured in Massachusetts due to the skull-breaker challenge. Kathleen DeJesus, 13, was the unsuspecting teen who got hurt last month. "I was thinking, like, I feel like I was going to die," she said. "I was paralyzed. I fell, I had a concussion, and I was numb, I couldn't feel my legs, my foot, my hands, nothing."
Clearly, teens need to understand that these incredibly dangerous challenges have big consequences, and sometimes those can even be tragic. While participating in making viral videos and getting online attention can certainly be fun, it's not always worth it. As we're seeing, many of these viral videos can result in serious injuries.
A TikTok spokesperson told NBC News that the platform does not promote these kinds of videos in any way. “The behavior in question is a violation of our guidelines and we will continue to remove this content from our platform,” a statement read. “We encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.”
