Choking game fatal for growing number of youths

ATLANTA - At least 82 youths have died from the so-called "choking game," according to the first government count of fatalities from the tragic fad.

In the game, children use dog leashes or bungee cords wrapped around their necks or other means to temporarily cut blood flow to their head. The goal is to experience a dreamlike, floating-in-space feeling when blood rushes back into the brain.

As many as 20 percent of teens and preteens play the game, sometimes in groups, according to estimates based on a few local studies. But nearly all the deaths were youths playing alone, according to the count compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC started the research after receiving a letter last year from a Tacoma, Wash., physician who said her 13-year-old son died from the game in 2005.

"At the time I had never heard of this," said Patricia Russell, whose son was found hanging in his closet, but she later learned he had talked to a friend about it.

"One thing that really needs to happen - and is starting to happen now - is to get more information about how common this is," she said.

The CDC counted cases from news reports and advocacy organizations for 1995 through 2007 and found 82 fatalities of children ages 6 to 19. They did not include deaths in which it was unclear whether the death was from the choking game or it was a suicide, or deaths that involved autoerotic asphyxiation, self-strangulation during masturbation. The CDC also such deaths likely are underreported.

The 82 deaths were spread across 31 states. Nearly 90 percent were boys, at an average age of about 13, the CDC found.

Three or fewer deaths were reported from 1995 through 2004. They jumped to 22 in 2005, 35 in 2006 and at least nine in 2007. It's not clear what drove the increase in recent years, investigators said.

The report is being published this week in a CDC publication.