AIR-CLINIC WRITING CONTEST #28 - The Challenge of Choking

It was the 80s in Venezuela. One day my friend Fernando came with an idea, it consisted in provoking a faint, he called it "The Challenge of Choking".

He told us that first we had to bend down, exhale all the air from our lungs and stand up immediately. With the help of two companions we pressed the chest while you continued to exhale. This caused an induced fainting that lasted a few seconds, some even convulsed. The other companions were waiting for you not to fall to the floor.

For most of us this caused us great fear, but Fernando did it many times to impress us.

Unfortunately nowadays in the lyceums this practice is "fashionable" again.

Young people are left suffocating to avoid being victims of bullying, which would be applied by their peers for not participating in the activity.

The first lesions, more obvious, would be that the person who falls down violently to the floor are in control and hit the head causing serious damage, but also the lack of oxygen in the brain, causes the death of brain cells and despite the fact that adolescent regains consciousness, dead cells do not recover, they loses mental abilities.

The most serious is it can cause a cardiac arrest, injuries in the airways and injuries of cervical column that would cause quadriplegia and hemiplegia of the affected one, it would not be the first case of a young dead person or that is invalid by this game, and those tragedies have happened in other parts of the world.

I am currently 45 years old like my friend Fernando, but he suffers from schizophrenia and epileptic seizures. I know he also has recurring episodes of fainting. Perhaps it is because of the effects of having provoked those.

It is absolutely necessary an educational health campaign, both parents and students about this unfortunate practice of our adolescents.