A CORONER has described as “alarming” a practice known as the “American dream game” in which young people voluntarily engage in choking.
Dr Kieran Geraghty, the Dublin county coroner, asked gardaí to convey his concerns to a secondary school in Co Meath where the practice had allegedly gone on, and to take what actions necessary to have it stopped.
So called because it originated among teenagers in the US, it is also known as the “choking game” and has been responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen people there.
Participants either choke each other or choke themselves in order to get a brief high.
Dr Geraghty recorded an open verdict on a 16-year-old student who died by hanging at his home in Co Meath a week before Christmas last year.
The teenager’s brother said the practice of the American dream game was “very, very commonplace” in the school they both attended and that pupils did it for kicks. He doubted, though, that this was the reason why his brother had died.
The teenager’s mother said she believed that what happened her son “was a tragic accident and everything we have found since has confirmed this”. She described him as a “happy and focused young man who knew exactly what he was doing”, who had made elaborate plans to buy presents at Christmas and who had planned to go on to study science at Trinity College Dublin.
The boy’s father said they knew him better than anyone else and there was never the slightest indication that he intended to kill himself or was unhappy.
Dr Geraghty said an open verdict was necessary if there was doubts over whether the person intended to commit suicide.