TikTok challenge leaves football player Mason Dark, 16, ‘unrecognisable’ with horrific burns across 75 per cent of body
A DANGEROUS TikTok challenge has left a teenager ‘unrecognisable’ after he suffered horrific burns all over his body.
Football player Mason Dark, 16, was left with serious injuries across 75 per cent of his body after he attempted to create a makeshift blowtorch.
The latest TikTok trend sees users trying to make the blowtorch using a lighter and a spray can.
Mason nearly lost his life after the can he was holding exploded in his hands.
The teen’s family recall hearing a loud “boom” at their home in Wake Forest, North Carolina before seeing the teen running outside and hurling himself into a lake, with 75 per cent of his body burnt.
Mason was rushed to the hospital and remains in the UNC Burn Center.
Gut-wrenching photos show the teen lying in a hospital bed wrapped in bandages.
His mom, Holli Dark, told WRAL her son “is unrecognisable” with third-degree burns to three-quarters of his body.
She said: “[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.
“We did not find out until yesterday that it was actually 76 percent of his body.”
The teen is expected to recover from his injuries as he is expected to be in a burn centre for six months.
His mom added: “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.
“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.”
A GoFundme page has been launched by the teen’s family, has raised over $18,000.
The page regularly provides updates on his condition.
The last update reads: “Mason has made it past the first 24 hrs, Praise the Lord! They are trying to regulate his body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.”