Mum issues stark warning after teenage son suffered brain injury when trying dangerous viral 'tap out' trend

A mum has issued a stark warning after her teenage son suffered a brain injury when trying to do a dangerous trend.

In the evening of 17 July, Amy Howson received a call from her sister to say her son, Lucas, had fallen unconscious and was ‘all cut up’ while in the park with his mates.

She drove straight over there to find him and while on the way, a woman rang to say she was with the lad and ‘he’d bit through his tongue’.

When the 33-year-old arrived, she found her son crying and covered in blood as it turned out he’d tried out a viral trend from social media.

"He wasn't making any sense. He kept repeating himself. He didn't know where he was. He was very confused, which shocked me the most,” Amy said.

When his mum arrived, Lucas had no recollection of what had happened. (Kennedy News and Media)

"He kept asking what had happened. There was no normal conversation. He kept forgetting that I had told him what happened."

After speaking to passers-by, the mum learned that Lucas and his friends had been putting each other in headlocks as part of what is known as the ‘tap out’ challenge.

This dangerous ‘game’ sees people holding each other in a chokehold, squeezing their neck until they nearly pass out and it claimed the life of one teen in Scotland back in 2023.

Lucas hadn’t had the chance to ‘tap out’ before he fell to the floor, knocking his chin and biting through most of his tongue.

“I was told he was unconscious for 20 seconds. His friends were all absolutely distraught. Luckily there were some first-aiders there,” Amy explained.

When asked about it, the lad told his mum he ‘didn’t want to get told off’ but that they ‘always do it’.

“He said everyone's doing it around school. They'd been play-fighting, taking turns to get each other in headlocks,” she added. "He's not a naughty child, he's got a good set of mates. You just don't know with kids, they stumble across these videos and think they'll try it."

He had suffered amnesia and bit through 3/4 of his tongue. (Kennedy News and Media)

Amy rushed her son to hospital where doctors confirmed he’s suffered amnesia and cut through three quarters of his tongue.

The lad thankfully made a full recovery, but Amy is warning other parents as she insists there should be better monitoring on social media to prevent kids from seeing these trends.

"I think whoever's doing these challenges are very stupid. Don't try them. I know when you're a kid you think you're invincible,” she said. "These videos should definitely be reviewed."

According to TikTok, the app does not allow content that shows or promotes dangerous behaviour, and they work to proactively identify, review, and remove content that violates their policies.

It has created technology that will alert safety teams to sudden increases in violative content linked to hashtags to detect any trends that might be harmful.

TikTok claims that between January and March 2025, of the videos it removed that violated its dangerous activities and challenges policy, 99.8 percent were removed proactively and 97.5 percent were removed within 24 hours.