TikTok sometimes has a lot of loopholes, especially when it comes to allowing dangerous challenges to trend on the platform. Recently, the viral Tongue-Piercing Game has struck many teenagers to imitate it despite knowing the accidents that could take place.

The latest victim involved a 13-year-old girl who needed to undergo major surgery in her abdomen after doing the challenge. The viral task requires the participant to put the magnetic balls on the side of his/her tongue, which will fool the viewers into thinking that he/she has an actual tongue piercing.

Ball Bearings Detected in Teenager's Gut After TikTok Tongue-Piercing Game

(Photo : Solen Feyissa from Unsplash)
Viral TikTok Tongue-Piercing challenge

According to the Independent's report on Thursday, May 27, the 13-year-old teenager was rushed by her mother, Faye Elizabeth, to the hospital. The girl complained that she was not feeling well, and that was the time when Elizabeth grew worried about her condition.

After being brought to the hospital, the doctor found out after scanning that there were ball bearings in the teenager's stomach. As a result, she would be needing emergency surgery to remove 15 metal beads in her internal organs.

In an interview with Liverpool Echo, Rainhill, Merseyside resident Elizabeth narrated that the doctors have to remove a portion of her bowel for the major abdominal surgery. The surgeon also identified one metal bead in her appendix, so they also needed to cut a small part of it.

Elizabeth explained that her daughter has watched the viral TikTok challenge before emulating the trend. At that time when the TikTok video was popular among the kids, a lot of teenagers copied it without the supervision of their parents.

"I haven't actually seen it but she told me about it and a lot of other children her age have seen it. They're magnets but because they're so small they're easy to swallow," Elizabeth said.

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Before the incident happened to Elizabeth's daughter, a previous case involving an 11-year-old surfaced on social media. The boy did the same technique in the video where the challenger needs to swallow the magnets to perfectly pass the game.

The boy, who was identified as Ellis Tripp, has also undergone an operation when the surgeons learned that he has five ball-bearing inside his intestines.

On Friday, May 21, he successfully survived the surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital.

According to Ellis' mother, Amy Clarke, the parents should be aware of what their children watch on the video-sharing platform. She said that what they felt was a "nightmare" for the family. If the condition of her son was ignored, he would have been dead by now.

She reminded the parents to talk to their children and tell them the dangers behind these viral TikTok trends.

Avoid These Dangerous TikTok Trends At All Cost

According to News Week's list, these 21 dangerous trends on TikTok should be avoided by children--and even adults--in social media. The parents should be familiar that these challenges could only harm the teens.

• Benadryl challenge - involves excessive intake of medications

• Coronavirus challenge - licking of items in public

• Eye challenge- putting hand sanitizer, Ziploc bag of jelly, bleach, and shaving cream near the eye

• Silhouette challenge - casual to nude pic transition

• Blackout challenge - restricting one's breathing to become high

• Scalp popping - twisting a piece of hair on someone's head crown

• Full face wax challenge - pouring waxes all over nose, ears, and faces

• Burning pile challenge -from dress-up to holding a lighter in front of a face

• Hyaluronic acid injections - injecting hyaluronic acid into the skin

• Sugar waxing challenge - creating a mixture of hot water, lemon, and sugar and applying to the skin

• Vampire Fangs- Gluing vampire fangs to the teeth using a superglue

• Filing Teeth - filing the teeth using a nail file

• Stand up challenge-standing on someone's back while laying on the ground

• Penny challenge - partly plugging a charger into a socket and later dropping a penny in the space

• Jaw exercise - an exercise believed to produce a chiseled jawline

• Nutmeg challenge - mixing of nutmeg with water/milk and drinking it

• Skullbreaker challenge - two people kick the leg of the third person while jumping

• Throw it in the air challenge -a person will throw an object into the air and the group members should not flinch while watching it drop onto their head

• Cha Cha Slide challenge - making criss-cross pattern while driving

• Corn cob challenge - eating a corn cob placed on a drills 

• Basketball beer challenge- holding a beer bottle on top of a basketball then later catching it 

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Written by Joseph Henry