Health
7-Year-Old Girl In Coma After Squishy Toy Explodes During Viral Tiktok Challenge
When a squishy toy exploded while a seven-year-old girl was trying a risky social media trend, she was placed in a coma and suffered terrible injuries.
After watching videos of others doing it on TikTok, Scarlett Selby of Festus, Missouri, in October 2024, placed a NeeDoh cube in the freezer and then microwaved it for a few seconds to make it more pliable.
But when she attempted to remove it from the microwave, it exploded, splattering red-hot goo from the cube onto her face and chest.
A ‘blood-curdling scream’ prompted her 44-year-old father, Josh Selby, to rush over and attempt to remove the substance from her skin and clothing.
Fearing that the burns on her mouth would cause her airways to swell and close, he ripped off her shirt in an attempt to help the situation before rushing the child to the hospital and putting her in an induced coma.
According to reports from March, Scarlett was awaiting word on whether she would require skin grafts for the second and third degree burns she had received.
Recalling what happened, Scarlett’s dad Josh said: “She’d frozen the NeeDoh cube the night before and the next day she showed me it was rock solid and was playing with it.”
“She stuck it in the microwave. I was watching her and saw her touch it to check it wasn’t too hot when she pulled it out.”
“It all happened so quickly. I heard her scream and it was like a blood-curdling scream. It had exploded all over her chest, mouth and chin.”
He continued: “My first thought was to try and wipe it off her. Whenever I touched her, my hand stuck to her. It was really thick and sticky.”
“I ripped her shirt off of her because it was stuck to her shirt as well. I took her as quickly as I could to the hospital.”
“I was a complete mess. She spent a week in the hospital and for three days of that she was in the coma. I don’t think I could speak to anybody without crying the entire time.”
According to Scarlett’s mother, Amanda Blakenship, her young daughter wanted to try the toy out for herself after seeing videos of others microwaving it on social media.
She heartbreakingly explained: “She was still screaming when we got to the hospital and it’s a good 30-minute drive from where we live. It was terrible how scared she was and how much that hurt her.”
“I was panicked, devastated, terrified and heartbroken. It was [something] she followed that she’d seen on TikTok and YouTube.”
The American couple is asking anyone who has these toys to discard them in order to save others from experiencing the same terrible accident.
Josh said: “I would have never thought of something exploding outside of the microwave like that.”
“For that to happen to my daughter was the hardest thing that I’ve gone through. I’ve told absolutely everyone to throw them out if they have them.”
“The product that’s in it is like glue so you essentially have hot glue exploding on you. Once it touches you, there’s no way to get it off.”
He urged: “It should not be sold like it is and it definitely should not be marketed the way it is. If something can explode like that, it definitely shouldn’t be frozen.”
Scarlett’s lips were so badly burned that she had to be kept on a feeding tube for the duration of her week-long hospital stay.
While the seven-year-old was in the hospital, doctors decided against doing a skin graft, but Amanda is concerned that she might require one in the future because she has “profound” scars.
‘Do NOT heat, freeze, or microwave, may cause personal injury’ is a warning posted on the website of Schylling Toys, a toy company that makes NeeDoh toys.
Tyla has reached out to Schylling Toys for a response.
According to TikTok, content that depicts or encourages risky behavior is not permitted, Kennedy News reported.
Additionally, it stated that in order to help identify potentially dangerous trends, it has developed technology that notifies its safety teams of abrupt spikes in offensive content associated with hashtags.
According to YouTube, it is a 13+ platform, and accounts belonging to minors without parental supervision may be terminated or subject to a supervised account setup.
It stated that it has stringent policies that forbid anything that shows children participating in risky activities, including challenges that present an immediate risk of bodily harm.
It stated that it “vigorously removes this type of content” and that user safety is its “utmost priority.”
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