12-yr-old in UK nearly loses life to chroming. What we know about TikTok trend popular with teens

A boy in the United Kingdom has become the latest to fall victim of a TikTok trend.

According to a report in Metro UK, a 12-year-old inhaled a can of deodorant as part of a social media challenge called ‘chroming.’

The boy survived after being rushed to hospital.

But others haven’t been so lucky.

Last year, the social media challenge led to the death of a teenage girl in Australia who also inhaled harmful chemicals from a container.

But what do we know about chroming?

Let’s take a closer look:

Also read: Gentle Parenting is burning up TikTok. What is this style of parenting and why is it controversial?

What happened?

Cesar Watson-King collapsed at his home in South Yorkshire’s Doncaster, as per Metro UK.

Thankfully, his mother Nichola, who was in the home, rushed downstairs after hearing a loud noise.

Nichola, 36, found Cesar having a seizure on the floor of their home.

“I had just finished breastfeeding my baby and was drifting off to sleep when I heard a really loud bang. I thought one of the kids had done something. I heard Cesar creeping downstairs and assumed he was getting something to eat. The bang sounded like someone had fallen over. I heard a moaning sound from downstairs and thought Cesar had broken a bone or something. When I went downstairs, I saw him lying on the floor, and his eyes were rolling back into his head. It was terrifying. He was having a seizure,” she told the outlet.

Cesar was rushed to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary after Nichola’s eldest son called emergency sevices.

Police then told Nichola they found a can of deodorant and other items on the kitchen floor.

“I hadn’t heard of chroming before this. An older boy had shown him how to do it. When police told me what he’d inhaled, I thought he was going to die. I knew the warnings on the back of the cans that say ‘solvent abuse kills instantly,’” Nichola added.

Cesar was then taken to Sheffield Children’s Hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma for two days.

Thankfully, when he was brought out of the coma, he began recovering.

He was discharged after spending eight days in the hospital.

“I was over the moon. He was almost back to normal when he was discharged-eating, drinking, having a laugh. He just feels tired. We don’t know about long-term damage, but his short-term memory is very bad. He couldn’t remember what had happened. If I hadn’t heard something that night, I would have found a dead body the next morning. I’ve spoken to Cesar and asked him never to do anything like this again. I’ve thrown out everything in the house that sprays,” Nichola added.

Cesar’s case comes around a year and a half after Esra Haynes, 13, passed away from chemical exposure at a sleepover after chroming.

Haynes, a student at Lilydale High School in Melbourne’s outer east, died on March 31 2023.

She suffered irreparable brain damage and a cardiac arrest, according to The Sun.

Before she passed away, she was hospitalised for a week.

Haynes’ parents are also  alerting others of the risks associated with chroming.

Her father Paul Haynes told A Current Affair, “Esra would’ve never have done this if she’d had known the consequences. That it could take your life."

"The ripple effect is that this is absolutely devastating, we’ve got no child to bring home,” Andrea Haynes added. While Esra’s sister, Imogen, told 7News, “We definitely have a mission to raise awareness for kids and anyone that does it. We don’t want that to happen to anyone else. We don’t want another family to go through this, it’s absolutely horrible.”

In 2022, a 16-year-old from Queensland passed away in 2022 after inhaling deodorant.

In 2021, another Queensland teen also experienced brain damage as a result of chroming.

Following an increase in deodorant thefts and amid worries about chroming, certain Coles and Woolworths stores across Australia began locking up their deodorant cans in 2021, reported New York Post.

In 2019, a 16-year-old from New South Wales died after inhaling an aerosol can.

What is chroming?

The Royal Children’s Hospital of Melbourne defines chroming as the practice of inhaling hazardous substances for recreational purposes.

According to the National Retail Association, even if the term “chroming” has expanded, the term originated from the practice of sniffing chrome-based paint to achieve a high. A few examples of toxic chemicals are aerosol cans, paint, solvent, permanent markers, nail polish remover, hairspray, deodorants, lighter fluid, glue, cleaning supplies, nitrous oxide or gasoline.

Nitrous oxide inhalation, popularly known as “laughing gas,” “whippits,” and “hippy crack,” is a common but exceedingly risky way to get high without taking hard narcotics. Nitrous oxide can be purchased legally in single-use silver “cracker” canisters, pumped into balloons, and breathed; but, doing so recreationally is against the law.

While there are several ways to inhale these drugs, “chroming” is the generic term for doing so.

Huffing is the act of inhaling something while holding a towel over one’s mouth and nose. Bagging is the process of placing the material in a plastic bag and breathing the vapours through the aperture. Taking a direct breath from the container via sniffing or snorting. Spraying is putting the substance directly into your mouth or nose.

American Addiction Centres claim that chroming is common among Gen Z and among groups of people who cannot afford or do not have access to other substances. Post-pandemic, chroming experimentation rates among people 16 to 24 years old have skyrocketed, reported New York Post.

According to The Times, in 2021 these practices were accessible to American youth online. Users of inhalants upload movies to TikTok under the name “Whiptok” (a play on the word “whippit”), with clips that have received more than 412.6 million views.

The trend has also been adopted by some celebrities, including Stephen Gilchrist Glover aka Steve-O, who revealed to the New York Times in 2021 that he had a drug addiction and was worried about the impact of social media. He remarked, citing instances of musicians and friends experimenting with nitrous oxide on Instagram, “It’s definitely more, like, relevant today.”

Actor Drake Bell, 36, was reportedly seen in his parked car outside of his Los Angeles home, seemingly inhaling from a fully inflated balloon, according to a recent claim from TMZ. According to the publication, a canister that looked like a nitrous oxide container was found inside the vehicle.

Also read: What is Xylazine, the ‘zombie drug’ in US that’s rotting the flesh of users?

What does chroming do to your brain?

When absorbed into the body, these hazardous substances used to clean your home or repair your car “act as depressants, or relaxants” by slowing down human brain function, explained American Sunday newspaper Parade. To put it simply, the chemicals enter the air and, if breathed in, are “absorbed from the blood” and travel to our brains.

These inhalants cause a momentary “high,” slowing central nervous system brain activity.

Along with a euphoric feeling or high, other symptoms like hallucinations, vertigo, lack of body control, and more are frequently experienced.

If butane or propane is utilised, your brain won’t get any direct oxygen, which can result in instant death. But even if alternative materials are used, chroming causes horrendous harm to the brain—almost like melting it, according to Dr Jeremy Hayllar, Clinical Director of Brisbane’s Biala Community Health Service, who spoke to Australian source ABC News.

“Imagine something made of plastic; now let’s say you heat it up and it kind of loses its shape and form. We could make the same analogy with the effects of solvents on the brain. It’s not heat that’s doing it, but it’s being dissolved by soluble substances that get into fatty tissue and disrupt them,” he said.

What are the side effects?

Slurred speech, lightheadedness, hallucinations, euphoria, nausea, vomiting, and confusion are some of the side effects of chroming. These early symptoms, which resemble those of alcohol intoxication, are frequently brief-lived and happen fewer than six hours after exposure, reported New York Post.

The brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys can all be irreversibly damaged by chroming, which can potentially cause a heart attack, convulsions, suffocation, coma, choking, or even fatal harm.

According to a study published in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Research, long-term use of inhalants can cause cognitive impairment, including memory loss, difficulty focusing, a lower IQ, and poor judgement. Inhalant abuse can potentially result in an unexpected death. The National Institute of Health states that “sudden sniffing death syndrome” can occur after just one chroming session.

According to Drug-Free World, a US survey collecting data from 2002 to 2006 indicated that, on average, 593,000 youths between the ages of 12 and 17 had never used inhalants before the poll. 22 per cent of people who passed away from sudden smelling death syndrome were first-time users who had never chromed before.

With inputs from agencies