The death of a 12-year-old Seattle girl has prompted school officials to alert parents to a troubling practice in which children intentionally cut off oxygen to their brains as a means of getting high.
The so-called choking game may have killed the McKnight Middle School seventh-grader, who was found unconscious in her bedroom Wednesday with one end of a karate belt knotted around her neck, the other tied to the top of her bunk bed.
"Whether it is an accidental death or intentional death is the question, and I don't know if we'll ever find out," said Seattle Police Department spokesman Rich Pruitt. The King County Medical Examiner's Office determined only that the cause of death was asphyxia. An investigation is continuing.
Either way, officials in the Seattle and Renton public school districts hastily circulated information Thursday about the practice, in which kids use their hands, arms, ropes or belts to cut off oxygen to their brains and induce light-headedness to the point of passing out.
Most important, experts around the country said, was for parents to talk with children about the dangers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/242904_choking30.html
The so-called choking game may have killed the McKnight Middle School seventh-grader, who was found unconscious in her bedroom Wednesday with one end of a karate belt knotted around her neck, the other tied to the top of her bunk bed.
"Whether it is an accidental death or intentional death is the question, and I don't know if we'll ever find out," said Seattle Police Department spokesman Rich Pruitt. The King County Medical Examiner's Office determined only that the cause of death was asphyxia. An investigation is continuing.
Either way, officials in the Seattle and Renton public school districts hastily circulated information Thursday about the practice, in which kids use their hands, arms, ropes or belts to cut off oxygen to their brains and induce light-headedness to the point of passing out.
Most important, experts around the country said, was for parents to talk with children about the dangers.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/242904_choking30.html