North Carolina – US: A TikTok challenge left a 16-year-old North Carolina boy with 75% of his body burns. Mason Dark was making makeshift torch with a spray paint can and a lighter.

The boy and his friends were performing a TikTok challenge that involved spraying a highly inflammable paint aerosol into a lighter which triggered an explosion that consumed the teens in flames.

Mason Dark’s family heard a big boom of explosion

We all heard a big boom and then Mason came running out and started taking off his shirt. The way he looked to what he looks like now, it’s 100 times different. He’s now unrecognizable.

Holli Dark – Mason Dark’s Mother

Dark was then rushed to the UNC Burn Center in Chapel Hill, where he had surgery. 

The jumping in river ended up with worsening his condition

Dark was then set alight and jumped into a nearby river to extinguish the flames, but he had already sustained severe burns. The teenager suffered a T-shaped third-degree burn on his back from ripping off the flaming shift, and is at high risk of infection from the river water.

The teenager, who is a very active football player and track runner, is expected to spend the next six months at the burn center.