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​12-Year-Old Girl In Intensive Care After Attempting Viral ‘Fire Challenge’

​12-Year-Old Girl In Intensive Care After Attempting Viral ‘Fire Challenge’

“She looked like a fireball. She was yelling, ‘Help me’.”

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

A 12-year-old girl is in intensive care after attempting a dangerous internet challenge that left her looking like a 'fireball'.

Timiyah Landers was at home with mother Brandi Owens and her fiance Marquell Sholar when the incident happened.

Brandi explained that she had left Timiyah and her two friends to go for a quick nap, when she heard a loud pop.

It was then that her daughter came rushing down the hallway.

Brandi, of Detroit, Michigan, told the Washington Post: "She looked like a fireball. She was yelling, 'Help me'."

Marquell tried to put out the flames while also getting Timiyah into the bath, as Brandi grabbed through the flames to rip off the clothes with her bare hands.

"I was reaching through the fire. It was like a reflex," Brandi said.

"I didn't even feel the fire, I was just saving my daughter."

Facebook/Brandi Owens

Eventually, Brandi and Marquell managed to put the fire out, but the damage had been done - and they rushed Timiyah to hospital, where she is now in intensive care, with nearly half her body covered in severe burns.

Brandi explained that her daughter had been attempting the 'fire challenge', a viral dare that involves pouring alcohol on your body before setting yourself on fire - and, of course, filming the whole process.

However, Brandi thinks that the perfumes and body spray that Timiyah was wearing at the time could have meant that the fire grew out of control.

She said: "When she put the alcohol on her and the girl lit the fire, it just basically blew up because she already had flammable things on her anyway, perfumes and stuff like that.

"They weren't expecting it to go that way. It was just a challenge, so it's a lesson learned for all of them."

While many things on the internet can go viral for fun, positive reasons, it's not always the case.

As well as the 'Fire Challenge' and the recent 'Hot Coil Challenge', one of the biggest online dares of this year was the frankly baffling 'Tide Pod Challenge'.

This saw youngsters videoing themselves putting a pod of Tide laundry detergent into their mouth - and eating it, despite the advice of doctors across the globe.

The strange but popular challenge is thought to have grown out of a popular strand of memes, which centre on the idea of someone wanting to eat the Tide laundry pods because they look like sweet, fruity snacks.

Featured Image Credit: Facebook/Brandi Owens

Topics: Viral, World News, News